Memories of the Past, Visions for the Future
by dumamoja
Summary: The battle with Tartaros raged on until a voice spoke in everyone's minds, a voice that made Makarov's blood run cold. "Welcome to Tartaros, Fairy-Tail. I am Master E.N.D. king of the demons of Zeref." I do not own fairy-tail.
1. Memories

**Jambo fellow readers**

 **This is the first fiction that I will be publishing so it's kind of a test run.**

 **Be sure to read and review, I need all the advice that I can get.**

 **P.S. I am probably throwing the order of events in the Tartaros story arc to hell, I'm not really sorry if that offends you (because you don't have to read this) but I'm using them in the order that suits my story best.**

 **And now without further ado.**

Memories

The battle was not going well for Fairy-Tail, not that it was going poorly either, sure Tartaros had them outnumbered one hundred to one but they were relatively low power foot soldiers compared to Fairy-Tails elite wizards. Even young Romeo, who was by no means a power house by Fairy-Tail standards, was pulling his own weight in the battle. The skill of his children wasn't what was worrying Makarov, it was the length of the battle that had him worried, they had been fighting for hours, and with no end of the soldiers in sight Makarov was worried that they wouldn't have the strength to defeat the Demon Gates, especially with such strong members as the Thunder Legion still out from an encounter with just one of them a few days ago. That was the other thing that was worrying the 6th master, those wounded during the battle had nowhere to go but Porlyusica, who was still on the battlefield herself, and they didn't have the manpower to spare anymore mages to guard the makeshift medical ward.

Makarov's hopes had soared when Erza had broken through the ground below (above?) them opening up a direct route to the fortress on the top of the cube. While Erza battled Kyôka in the skies above(below?) them, many Fairy-Tail mages had poured into the hole flooding the fortress of Tartaros, splitting up upon entering the structure and keeping in touch as best they could with Warren's telepathy, it had been about an hour since their last communication, in which Warren had informed them that Wendy had left the battle field in order to destroy the "Face" device that was supposedly able to remove all magic from the continent, with still no further information on Wendy Makarov was beginning to worry about her as well. He was more than relieved when he finally felt the familiar sensation of his mind being contacted by telepathy.

Those feelings of alleviation immediately vanished as an unfamiliar voice spoke in his, and the rest of the battle participants, minds'.

"Welcome to Tartaros Fairy-Tail, I am Master E.N.D. king of the demons of Zeref."

Makarov's blood ran cold, everything that they were trying to prevent had come to pass anyways. For the first time Makarov began to consider retreat, while that was still an option, just find his children and run as fast as they could. Unlike the majority of his children he was no fool, he knew that in their weakened state his guild members would be hard pressed to fight the Demon Gates, and now their king had entered the battle, obviously fresh and full of energy as someone who had just finished a week-long vacation.

He was not the only one intelligent enough to realize the gravity of their situation, he was in a group with Macao, Wakaba, and Romeo, and from the looks on their faces he could tell that they were having thoughts along the same lines as him.

He was about to use this moment while they were all connected via telepathy to give the order to retreat, evacuate the town of Magnolia and get as far from there as possible when E.N.D. made an announcement that suddenly left him frozen in shock and confusion.

"I respectfully request a cease-fire between our two guilds Makarov, I believe that there has been enough damage done today, and too much has been done to your people and family. I feel that you are all are owed a proper apology for, and explanation of, my guilds actions. I want to speak to all of you personally, as such I extend an invitation to all of you, asking that you would join me in my throne room that I may suitably attempt to make things right between us."

Makarov's eyebrows knit together as he thought on the words of the demon king.

Eventually coming up with an alternative Makarov spoke for the first time to E.N.D., "I will meet with you, but I do not want my children anywhere near you."

The monarch's sigh was heard before he said, "I would rather you come all at once 6th Master. You see the explanation is a bit lengthy and painful for me to recall, I would much rather not have to tell it more than once. As a show of good will, I have sent Tempester to your Madam Porlyusica with the orders to assist her in any way necessary to get your Thunder Legion back on their feet, this also helps me as it ensures that I won't have to tell the story, again, to them later."

Makarov had stopped listening after he was told that one of the Nine Demon gates had gone to the medical area, where his old friend was taking care of his children, and his biological grandson, all of who were ill, aside from Porlyusica.

"DON'T YOU DARE SEND ANY OF YOUR DEMONS ANYWHERE NEAR MY CHILDREN!"

"It's already been done Makarov." Came the gentle, if surly, voice of the great healer Porlyusica, she had been tempted to shout over the link, but she knew that Makarov didn't need her adding to his stress levels, not that she could be perfectly calm and caring as she drew blood from a demon. "I've already used some of his blood to help Laxus recover," She continued in order to aid him in his process of calming down.

Makarov was still livid when the voice of his grandson drifted to him through the telepathy, "Gramps, I just got here and I'm already done with this battle, and if you think that we'll just let you face this guy on your own you're crazy, if he's telling the truth than we got nothing to worry about, if he's lying than there's no chance we could get far enough away to make a difference, if we are going to die today than we would all rather die together fighting than all alone running." There was a chorus of mages voicing their agreement with the lightning dragon slayer, and E.N.D. also responded saying, "Well said Laxus."

Makarov nearly broke his fingers with how tightly he was clenching his fists, but slowly he relaxed them as he realized that his grandson had spoken the truth. He reluctantly replied to E.N.D.

"I will accept your invitation."

"Excellent! Seeing that you are all a great distance from my throne room I shall open a gate that shall transport you all here." As he finished speaking a large gate appeared in a flash of fire in front of Makarov's group, it was beautiful in a twisted sort of way, the gate seemed to be made of solid flames that twisted and danced around an invisible gate post. It pulsed with a deep red light the way a fire might actually give off light. Upon looking at the words engraved on a plaque over the gate Makarov raised an eyebrow, while all the other mages of Fairy-Tail raised their voices.

"What kind of trick do you think that you are pull?" Macao shouted over the rest of the wizards through the telepathy.

"What do you mean?" E.N.D asked sounding genuinely confused.

"The kanji over the gate!"

"What kanj…oh…"

"WELL!"

"You see, it's been many years since I've opened this gate and I completely forgot that its name was written over the opening…"

"THAT DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY YOU WANT US TO WALK THROUGH THIS 'GATE OF HELL'!"

Sure enough, the kanji on the plaque read "Gate of Hell"

"Well it's not…" E.N.D. started to explain, but he was quickly interrupted by a large number of angry mages.

"You seriously still trying to trick us?"

"That's a low blow getting our hopes up like that."

"And you actually thought we would fall for tha…"

"SHUT UP!" the demon king roared with such ferocity that even Erza was left quaking in her boots.

"Damnit," E.N.D. continued, "you made me break character. Look this is my gate, it can be used to summon me if you have enough power, kind of like celestial magic, but with demons instead of spirits. My gate is simply known as the Gate of Hell because… whoever named it, not me, had a sense of humor and thought that the fire devil's gate should be called that okay?

It doesn't _have_ to lead to Hell, I can open it anywhere I want so long as I'm on one side of it."

There was still quite a bit of muttering and arguing over whether or not they should trust the word of a Demon King, when Laxus' voice cut through everyone's heads.

"Would you guys just shut up and get over here already?"

Silence fell on the guild for a brief moment, then Makarov, in a rather quiet voice asked, "Laxus, are you really already there?"

"Yeah Gramps, now will you hurry up and get moving? I'm getting tired of waiting."

"You sound pretty good for a guy who just got out of a poison induced coma…" Wakaba said.

"Wendy is here also," Freed spoke in everyone's heads, "she is currently healing Evergreen."

"Wait how did she get here?" Macao asked

"I was contacted with telepathy like everyone else, despite how far away I was, so after the gate appeared, and the name was explained I went through."

"Actually," E.N.D. said, "Wendy was the first one here, so all of you 'great, powerful and brave mages' of Fairy-Tail do realize that you were just outdone, by a TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRL!"

The silence that followed the demon king's statement was so intense that everyone could just hear Wendy's slightly put off mutter of, "I'm thirteen…"

E.N.D. seemed to decide that it would be best if he ignored her correction for now.

The quiet was soon broken again, this time by the ice-make mage who was probably shirtless by now, "How do we know that you aren't just using your powers to speak to us in their voices? Brain of the Oracion Seis did that one time and fooled us all."

There were some murmurs of agreement from the other guild members, although Makarov did take notice of the fact that they weren't as loud or rambunctious as before.

E.N.D.'s exasperated sigh was heard before, after yet another moment of silence, he answered, sounding both tired of the whole ordeal and more than a little mad at the stubbornness of the mages.

"Because, Ice Dick, I don't have to resort to tricks to kill every single one of you without so much as leaving this room." His tone was low, and deadly serious as he continued, "I am Master E.N.D. the king of the demons of Zeref, and the only magic user on the planet who has enough power to finally kill the black mage. The power of ten wizard saints is nothing to mine, and the Spriggan 12 cower before me."

"The Spriggan 12..?" Wakaba asked along with the rest of Fairy-Tail.

"In the country across the sea called Alvarez, the Spriggan 12 are the personal bodyguards of the mighty Emperor Spriggan, to put their power in perspective the strongest of the wizard saints, a man so 'modestly' referred to as God Serena, would be the 4th most powerful should he join their ranks, and the rest could still stand toe to toe with him in battle."

It seemed that the guild was responding, to a lot of the information that the demon king was sharing with them, with silence quite a bit today.

"Honestly I could kill you all from where I sit by saying three words and flexing the muscles of my right arm, but I don't want to do that. I just want to end the useless fighting and destruction that has been going on recently. Now would you please go through the damn gate?"

Seeming to have been properly chastised and convinced all the mages of Fairy-Tail walked, rather begrudgingly, towards the portal that was nearest to them. As it should have been Makarov was the first to pass through the gate into the throne room.

It was a sizable room to say the least, having more than twice the floor space than the main room of the Fairy-Tail guild hall(assuming that the guild hall was still standing) and circular, torches lined the walls giving off plenty of light, as Makarov looked around and, to his relief, saw Laxus, the Thunder Legion, Wendy, her exceed and Mest all off to the side, Wendy still treating the wounded with Porlyusica the others either standing guard or helping to carry those with more serious injuries, Makarov also saw more of his children entering the room through gates identical to the one he had come from.

Continuing his inspection of the throne room Makarov saw that there was only one entrance through the solid walls, a set of massive double doors just behind him, with some of the Nine Demon Gates standing guard around them. If that was to be considered the back of the room than the front was most certainly where the throne was. The only other break in the uniform curve of the walls, other that the doors, was an alcove directly across from the entryway, while there were still torches lit in the alcove they were much dimmer than the others in the room, casting only enough light to see the silhouette of the throne, and the being who sat in it.

Master E.N.D. was indeed sitting in the throne when Makarov first entered the room, but as the rest of Fairy-Tail finished gathering he rose from his seat bringing himself to his full height. Makarov studied the demon king as best he could with the poor light of the alcove, he was tall, at least six feet, he wore loose fitting pants and that was it, the reason for his state of undress was fairly obvious though, for while he had feet that that were the same basic shape as a humans, they were taloned with rough skin that resembled scales and had a reddish tint to it, his hands had the same style as his feet, being overall the same shape as a humans but having talons instead of nails and rough, scaly skin with the same reddish hue. From his wrists up to his torso his skin was normal looking, if slightly tanned, and he was well muscled, but the attention grabbing details were the black marks that ran along his entire body. Like ink black tattoos, all in the shape of flames, they were all connected (as far as Makarov could see) and they were sparsely scattered across his body like light decorations. But by far the most interesting attribute that the master of Tartaros possessed (and the obvious reason for his lack of shirt) were the wings on his back, with a shape that resembled those of a dragons, they were just as rough and red as his hands and feet, and appeared to not want to fully fold up into his back, opting to relax, about a fifth of the way open.

The face of the demon king was obscured by the shadows of the alcove so Makarov could only see his mouth, which was grinning a fanged grin. As for the rest of his face, you could tell by the shadow that he had a lot of spiky hair and what looked like two horns atop his head. As he spoke for the first time since they entered the room, Makarov noticed that when E.N.D. "broken character" his voice had changed, becoming somewhat familiar, as he regained his composure, however, his voice returned to the unfamiliar one he had used while "in character".

"This, as you may have guessed, is my throne room Fairy-Tail," he said, bringing his right arm and a previously unseen pointed devil's tail towards his stomach as he bowed, though not enough to free his face from the shadows.

"I would like to welcome you here on behalf of my unfortunately absent queen, who is currently searching for more appropriate attire than what she was wearing when I was fully released. I apologize for…"

"QUEEN?!" all the Fairy-Tail mages shouted as one, after coming out of their initial shock at the demon king's statement, causing E.N.D. to bring his hands to his ears quite suddenly.

"I wasn't aware that you had a queen," stated Erza Scarlet, her brown eyes wide with shock.

Makarov turned around to look at the Demon Gates to see their reaction to their master's statement. They were all looking to one who resembled a man with long black hair and pale skin, Makarov guessed him to be the second in charge of the Tartaros guild. The man, or demon, seemed to be explaining something to them, but Makarov was unable to hear what he was saying due to the distance between them.

"Yes well," E.N.D. started speaking to the, again, silent fairies, "I didn't have a queen when I was sealed away. She is a human girl who has agreed to be my queen, and before you start throwing around accusations, no she was not blackmailed, threatened, or in any way pressured to accept my request, she was well aware of the facts and chose, of her own free will, to join me, as my queen and the one I love."

"Now as I was saying, I apologize for my state of undress, but the last time I was at full power I didn't have wings so none of my shirts are tailored to accommodate them. But I assure you that I shall deal with that as soon as possib…"

He was yet again interrupted by the confused, upset, and rather delayed, cries and questions of the Fairy-Tail mages.

"She was aware of all the facts and she still went with you?"

"Wait, so she's a human?"

"I thought that you saw humans as creatures inferior to insects…"

Makarov was both surprised and amused at the sight of the demon king raising his hand towards his head in a motion that looked like a face palm. Makarov was even more surprised at his own decision to help the master of Tartaros regain order.

"ALL RIGHT YOU BRATS THAT'S ENOUGH! LET HIM SPEAK FOR A LITTLE BIT AND MAYBE HE WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS!"

It was almost comical how quickly everyone quieted down. Except for one smartass, who sounded suspiciously like Max, saying, "I just wanna know how got a girl when he's only been awake for five minutes…"

Before Makarov or E.N.D. could respond, one of the Demon Gates, another vaguely humanoid figure with yellow hair and canine ears, spoke up for the first time, saying, "How dare you question our masters power and ability. Once he has set for himself a goal nothing will stop him from attain…"

"JACKAL BE SILENT!" Roared master E.N.D., "AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE ANY OF THE FAIRIES ARIVED HERE, I WISH, FOR YOUR SAKE, TO FORGET YOUR PRESENCE!"

The demon who had spoken, Jackal, shrunk back with a grimace on his face. Makarov raised an eyebrow at the demon king's actions but said nothing. As he looked back to the master of the demons he noticed that E.N.D. was still staring at the back of the room, head tilted to the side as if thinking something was off.

"There's someone missing." He said.

The black haired demon spoke up, "Mard Geer is afraid that Ezel has fallen in battle, my master, to the slayer of the sky dragons."

E.N.D.'s head swiveled towards the spot where Wendy was sitting, "you defeated Ezel?" he asked

Wendy, who was sporting a much shorter haircut than when Makarov had last seen her, stood from helping the injured and, with a confidence that few suspected her of possessing, nodded firmly saying, "yes sir,"

The much unexpected noise of clapping filled everyone's ears as the demon king slowly brought his hands together, "Well done, well done indeed, I must say that is no small feat that you have accomplished. Sadly I must undo it, for he needs to hear what I have to say just as much as the rest of you,"

"U-undo it sir?" Mirajane spoke up, "How? During my fight with Seilah I destroyed the lab that you need to stay immortal."

The demon king threw back his head and gave a short bark of laughter before explaining the situation.

"We do not need the lab to be immortal, we are immortal to begin with, the lab simply speeds up the process of our regeneration, without it we will still come back, but it could take years, or even decades to be fully restored. However I'm sure that you remember my comparing my gate to celestial magic, with enough power I can open Ezel's gate and revive him in the blink of an eye. I can do that with all my followers, they are the Demon Gates, and I am the gate keeper.

"Now," the demon king clapped his hands together in some strange symbol, with his left hand palm up, fingers slightly curled and his right hand opened in much the same way, but with his fingers jabbing downward into his left palm, "OPEN! GATE OF SWORDS! EZEL!"

There was a brief flash of light, and once it faded a light blue demon with four tentacles instead of legs was resting on his hands in front of his king.

"It is good to see you again Master E.N.D."

"Ezel I wish for you to stand guard at the door with the rest of your brethren, but stay in the room for I have a story to tell, and I have no desire to tell it more than once. Also no fighting any of the humans, what I have to say is for them too."

Without a word the demon got up and went to the back of the room with the other creations of Zeref.

"Now please, have a seat everyone," The master said snapping his fingers. Instantly several small fires rose up around the room, all of them blinking out of existence as quickly as they came to be. As soon as they all died down there were chairs across the room, all different in shape and size, specifically designed for the person closest to them.

"Like the fire god slayer I can make my flames into solid constructs, however mine don't have to be hot in solid form," the demon king said.

His reassurances didn't stop the fairies from doing a few test touches before sitting down.

"Now, I know you have many questions, probably ranging from 'Why are you acting so different from the stories?' to 'how can you land a girl in just five minutes?'," the second example was delivered with a glare at Max, "and I must first start by saying the E.N.D that you have heard of never existed, I was never _that_ bad, although I was far from who I am now,

"I suppose the best place to start the story would be at the beginning, with my birth," there were some groans from his audience, to which he replied, "trust me every detail I tell you is important, and I will try my best to keep you interested.

"As I was saying, on July 7th, in the year X368 I was born, fully human, I did not become a demon until later, I never knew my father, he was killed in an accident before I was born, or mother, she died while in labor with me, actually, I wasn't even born until after she died, I was raised by my brother, who was only 6 at the time, but he was already a powerful mage, strong enough, and smart enough to provide for us and keep a roof over our heads. And so my life went, until five years later, on July 14th, in the year X372, I died."

E.N.D. paused there for a moment allowing his words to sink in before continuing.

"This drove my brother to obsession, as I said he was a powerful mage even at the age of six, after my death he went to Mildian Magic Academy to research the reason that people live, and the reason that people die. After less than a year there he was astounding the professors with his ideas and discoveries, he was holding lectures that were always filled to the brim with intellectuals from across the country, everyone wanted to hear what my brother, Zeref, had to say.

Makarov was impressed at his children's sudden ability to remain silent and not interrupt the demon king at every startling revelation.

"Yes all of Zeref's inventions, the Eclipse Gate, The R-System, even the demons, were made with the sole intention of reviving me. They never made it past the blueprint stages though, Zeref deemed the R-System as to barbaric and counterproductive when he realized that it would require multiple human sacrifices to resurrect one person, and it was while he was working on the Eclipse Gate that he was cursed. He himself was made immortal, but the more value he placed on human life, the more life that he destroyed.

"It was after this that he discovered how to create the demons, and after many attempts, he created the 9 demons who stand behind you now, trying and failing to make a being powerful enough to kill him. This is how I was revived, he found that the demons could be restored quite quickly in a lab similar to the one that you destroyed miss Mirajane, and so he took my body, which he had preserved through magic, and turned me into a demon myself, using the lab to bring me back to life.

"He accomplished more than he thought that he would though, for after I was fully restored it was discovered that, even though my body and mind were still that of a five year old's, I had power comparable to that of the nine Demon Gates. He had begun to hope that I would have enough power to end his suffering…"

There was an unexpected sound of snickering in the audience of the demon king, and everyone turned to look at Max and Warren, who each had their hands over their mouths.

The master of Tartaros sighed and said, "for those smartasses clever enough to see the pun there of ' _E.N.D_. bringing an _end_ to Zeref,' I am so glad that it was funny enough for you to interrupt me by laughing, right after I said that I was brought back to life in the hopes that I could KILL MY BROTHER! THE ONE WHO RAISED ME! WHO PROVIDED FOR ME! WHO PROTECTED ME FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE! AND WHO SEARCHED FOR A WAY TO BRING ME BACK AFTER MY DEATH!"

Max and Warren shrank back at both the king's outrage and the glares that they were receiving from the guild. No one had expected to feel anything resembling sympathy for the master of Tartaros, but they did.

"Continuing my story, Zeref again began to raise me, but more than that, to train me. To train me to control my powers and grow in strength, we began to wander the continent, stopping at villages occasionally to resupply and gather information, he would always go around the village and meet up with me on the other side, due to the fact that the curse would cause him to kill anyone who came to close, and wasn't a demon. Whenever I had to enter a town I would pull up my hood and try to blend in, which is quite difficult when you are a seven year old with horns, many times I was discovered and would have to fight my way out, no one caring who I was beyond the fact that I was a demon.

"Many years later Zeref found, and took advantage of, an opportunity to fake his death, in order to bring some peace to the world of men, but we the demons knew that he was simply hiding. It was at this time that I officially started the dark guild known as 'Tartaros' and took on the responsibility of leading Zeref's creations, our mission was a simple one, we were going to return to Zeref. Not all of them followed me, some of the failed experiments, namely the two known as 'Lullaby' and 'Deliora' took more pleasure in the simple torment of people than in the idea of completing that which was our reason for living. I took it upon myself to hunt down the traitors personally. Deliora hid himself away somehow but Lullaby was much more foolish, believing that he could even hold a candle to my power proved to be a horrible mistake on his part. I was the one who sealed him away into that flute, the battle was rather short, an easy victory for me, but I'm sure that it was a spectacular sight for anyone to behold, for although he was weak when compared to me, he still had a respectable amount of power.

"After that battle was when things began to go wrong, before I could properly seal away the flute that now contained Lullaby, I was met by a mob of townspeople, I would presume to thank me for saving them form Lullaby, but when they saw me, with my demon horns, tail, and marks, they became afraid and attacked me on the spot, just like when I was a child, they neither knew or cared about me beyond the fact that I was a demon. That was when I first began to grow bitter towards the humans.

"This pattern continued, with the only differences being the town I saved, and the demon I hunted. Without fail I would be mobbed by the inhabitants of the area, and with each incident, my bitterness grew. It eventually came to the point where instead of simply fleeing the area, I would cause a great deal of property damage to the town, never attacking the people directly, but not really caring if they were caught in the blast.

"My infamy grew to the point where Igneel, the king of the fire dragons, came hunting me. It was when he caught up to me that his wisdom and experience shone through, for when he looked at me, what he saw was not an evil demon bent on destruction, but a twisted, tired, lonely, broken, soul. He saw through the anger, and the walls that I had put up, and instead of battling me as he originally intended, he spoke to me, he asked me questions about myself, where I came from, what I desired.

"For the first time in centuries someone spoke to me, not as though I was a demon, but as though I was a person with a soul. I spoke with Igneel for two days straight, neither eating nor drinking during that time. The longer we spoke the more comfortable I became, the more I grew to like this dragon king, until he made me an offer, he offered to seal away all of my demonic powers and memories, to give me a chance to see the world through the eyes of a human, the eyes of someone the world wouldn't automatically hate and despise.

"I accepted the offer with almost no hesitation. And so the deed was done, Igneel not only sealed my powers and memories, but somehow managed to seal everyone's memories of me, people still knew that I had existed, but no one remembered the look of my face, the sound of my voice, or even what my full name was. Not even the demons of Zeref were spared in that detail, only Igneel and Zeref remembered who I was.

"I realize now that as I wandered the world after that, I had been truly freed, I was no longer a victim of prejudice, I had no memories of the horrible treatment I had received at the hands of humans, and without the influence of my devil magic my personality became what it would have become on its own, a much more carefree, happy one than that which I had possessed prior to Igneel's gift."

"What do you mean 'without the influence of my devil magic'? What influence?" The question was voiced by Gray, though it seemed that all of Makarov's children were silently asking the same thing.

"Magic," E.N.D. started to explain, "has an influence on your personality, the type of magic you practice determines just what that influence will be."

"Seriously?" Gray asked.

Even through the shadows Makarov could see the demon king deadpan, "You are an ice make wizard. How would you describe yourself? Calm cool collected for the most part? A bit standoffish? Is that not how many people would describe your step-brother Lyon, who also uses ice magic? How about that fire dragon slayer that is a part of your guild? You would say that he is a hyperactive knucklehead who prefers actions to words, the same could be said of the fire god slayer Zancrow. Or how about the sky dragon and sky god slayers? They are both considered adorable little angels by their peers, both kind, generous, gentle and all around good natured. Most people who practice slayer magic also go through a time where they suffer from a superiority complex.

"This isn't to say that magic forces you to change, it's not like a master, it's more like a mother or father, if you live with them then they begin to rub off on you a little bit, you start to mimic them in some ways, but overall you are still your own person. Also the younger you are when you start, the stronger the influence is.

"Anyways, devil magic influences you to be more of a bitter person, or in my case, demon, so when Igneel sealed my power and memories, not only was my power no longer causing me to be spiteful, but I didn't remember having anything to be mad about. I was a clean slate, I was myself, and I was ready for anything the world had to throw at me,"

"Just to clarify," Makarov spoke up, "you weren't ever sealed away?"

"Not entirely," the demon king explained, "It's true that once Igneel sealed away my powers and memories I went into a magical hibernation of sorts, but once I awoke from that I went on to live life as a human.

"So how is it that you've been awakened now?" asked Makarov.

"Over time the seal began to weaken, and seven years ago during the Tenrou Island incident that the seal began to fall apart faster, caused by Zeref's reemergence. Then the activity of Tartaros in recent weeks had weakened it to the point that the essence of my memories returned to me, after that I did everything in my power to fully release my powers so that I could stop the foolish actions of my followers.

Throughout the entire story Makarov had been periodically glancing behind him at the demons standing guard in the back of the room. As he continued to do so he had noticed that one of them, the yellow haired one called Jackal, had been growing more and more restless, squirming where he stood, opening his mouth every now and then as if to say something only to be hushed by the others around him. It seemed however, that his master's last comment had been the last straw as he now boldly took a step forward, ignoring the words of his brethren as he addressed E.N.D.

"FOOLISH ACTIONS? WE DID ONLY WHAT WAS OUR DUTY! OUR MISSION! WHAT WE'VE BEEN CREATED TO DO! WE'VE ONLY DONE WHAT ZEREF- WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE ORDERED! IF YOU HADN'T GONE SOFT DURING YOUR TIME WITH THE HUMA…"

E.N.D., who had sat down sometime during his story, shot up from his chair and shouted, "FIRE DEVIL'S CHAIN!"

Then a chain appeared out of a flame, much in the same way that the chairs had earlier, one end flying across the room to wrap around Jackal's neck, the other end already securely around the demon king's hand. Once the chain had Jackal tightly held Tartaros' master flicked his wrist down causing the chain to slam to the ground in a wave-like motion that, once it reached him, brought Jackal to the floor with such force the solid stones beneath him gave way, leaving a perfect imprint of his face in the ground.

"YOU FOOL!" E.N.D. shouted, "DID I NOT TELL YOU TO REMAIN SILENT FOR YOUR OWN SAKE? I WAS HOPING TO LEAVE YOUR PUNISHMENT FOR A LATER TIME AFTER I HAD CALMED DOWN A BIT BUT I SEE NOW THAT THERE WOULD BE NO POINT TO THAT!

"AND NO! YOU DID NOT 'ONLY DO WHAT IS YOUR DUTY'! YOU WERE CREATED TO KILL ZEREF! NOT JUST TO GIVE HIM PEACE BUT TO SAVE PEOPLE FROM HIS OUT OF CONTROL POWER AS WELL! KILLING PEOPLE IN ORDER TO ACCOMPLISH THAT IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE! TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE NONE OF YOU EVEN LOOKED AT THE KILLINGS AS THOUGH THEY WERE NECESSARY EVILS! INSTEAD YOU LOOKED AT THEM WITH SADISTIC PLEASURE AND TOOK GREAT ENJOYMENT IN NOT ONLY THE DEATHS OF YOUR TARGET, BUT OF THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM AS WELL!"

The demon king then slammed the backs his hands together, palm up fingers bent perpendicular to his palms also pointed up.

"OPEN! GATE OF HELL!"

Said gate once again appeared out of fire the doors remaining shut.

"My lord," Mard Geer said, fear obvious in his voice, "is this truly what our punishment is?"

E.N.D. ignored him, "KEYES, YOU ARE EXCUSED FROM THIS BECAUSE YOU MUST USE YOUR NECROMANCY TO BRING BACK THAT TRAITOROUS COUNCILMAN, GRAN DOMA, AND HAVE HIM CONFESS HIS SINS TO THE WORLD! SILVER IS EXCUSED BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH HE HAD EVERY INTENTION OF KILLING ME ONCE I WAS REVIVED HE HELD ON TO HIS HUMANITY AS BEST AS HE COULD DURING HIS TIME IN MY GUILD! THE REST OF YOU SHALL SPEND TWO DAYS IN THE HELL THAT MY GATE NOW LEADS TO!"

"I thought that his gate didn't lead to Hell." Warren muttered to Max.

"I said it doesn't have to," the demon king said, displaying his superior hearing, "it can lead to wherever I want it to so long as I'm on one side of it. Now as for Mard Geer, Kyôka, and Jackal, because Mard Geer lead this movement, because Kyôka went to extremes in her torture and used her inability to tell when a woman was telling the truth as an excuse to continue to 'play' with her, and because Jackal, in all his assassination missions, not only killed his targets, but the entire town around them, going so far as to entertain himself by forcing one of the Fairy-Tail mages to choose between the life of a councilman who she was sent to protect, and the life of a pregnant woman, because your offenses are even greater than those committed by the rest of your brethren, you three shall spend the full three days in hell.

"Now GO! Before you give me cause to punish you again."

All the demons, aside from one who was wearing a suit of armor, left, either through the gate, though Jackal was dragged by the others, or the door behind them, the one who left by the door, Keyes, had a face that resembled a skeletons and carried a monks staff with rings on one end of it.

When they had gone E.N.D. remained standing, though his shoulders sagged.

"The full three days?" Makarov asked.

"Because they aren't dead they can only spend three days in Hell before it spits them back out to the world of the living where they belong," E.N.D explained with sorrow in his voice.

Everyone looked towards the throne at the front of the room and beheld a sight that, needless to say, no one was expecting to see, E.N.D. the almighty master of Tartaros and king of Zeref's demons,

.

.

.

Was crying... Not loud uncontrollable sobs, but a silent weeping, the only evidence that he was crying was the sorrow in his voice and the few tears that were making their way down past his mouth, which was pressed into a tight line, and towards his chin.

A rather long and uncomfortable silence stretched out as everyone pondered what to do about this unexpected development. Everyone except a certain little girl with black hair and a cowboy hat. Asuka, the young daughter of Bisca and Alzak, was just as confused as everyone else by the demon king's actions, and being very young, and therefore without fear on certain subjects, voiced her confusion.

"Why are you crying?"

All of the mages in the room visibly flinched, at both the sudden sound, and the question that was asked. Certain that E.N.D. would react poorly to such a question, they were surprised when he answered calmly, even if there was still a great deal of sadness in his voice.

"There are three reasons," he started, "the first is the punishment that I had to deal them. I'm supposed to lead them, to protect them, to show them how to live, and I failed them, as a result I have to give them pain, to show them the consequences of their actions. Tell me Makarov, is this how it feels to punish your children? Beyond those silly embarrassment games that you play."

Makarov nodded once, "Yes that is the pain that I feel when I must severely discipline my children."

The demon king's crying intensified slightly, his shoulders now shuddering slightly as he continued, "I'm also crying because of how far they have fallen in my absence, not to say that they were angels before I left, but while I was gone it seems that they have turned me into a symbol of superiority, they have forgotten not only my face, but who I was, why I was who I was.

"And lastly I'm crying because of all the people who died, but more than that," as he spoke he brought his hands out in front of him slightly, looking down at them, "the villagers, the council staff, the council members and former council members, Master Org, officer Lahar, all these people were killed by the Nine Gates, but they were killed in my name, meaning," E.N.D. had tears streaming down his face now, rolling off his chin and soaking the floor in front of him, his shoulders were now heaving in uncontrollable sobs, his hands trembling as he clenched them into fists and cried in a loud and defeated voice, "MY HANDS, ARE JUST AS BLOODY AS THEIRS!"

at the sound of his sorrow everyone was struck dumb and motionless, except for Asuka once again, who leapt from her mother's now limp arms and ran to the master of Tartaros, climbing the three steps to his slightly elevated platform, and threw her arms around his knees, which was as high as she could reach, and began to comfort him.

"It's not your fault, you didn't make them do that, and you stopped them as soon as you could. It's not your fault. It's not your fault."

She kept repeating this into the otherwise silent room, E.N.D. had even stopped crying as he stared in frozen shock, along with everyone else, at the girl hugging his knees. Suddenly another hand appeared from a hidden door in one side of the alcove, and took the demon's still clenched fist into its grasp.

And a very familiar voice spoke up saying, "See? Even little Asuka doesn't blame you. Despite how young she is, she's wise enough to know that you aren't the one at fault. She doesn't blame you, and neither do I, and I doubt that anyone else who knows the truth will either."

The hand and voice belonged to a woman, a woman who was wearing a black dress that was decorated with colored glass beads that were red and orange and arranged in a way that made it look like a fire was burning around her ankles and slowly climbing up her dress, she had blonde hair, chocolate brown eyes, and wore a kind and soft expression on her face.

None of the guild members noticed that though, for their eyes were still glued on her right hand, the hand which was holding E.N.D.'s, the hand that had a pink Fairy-Tail guild mark on it. It was at that point that everyone simultaneously realized that Lucy Heartfilia was never a part of the audience with them.

Lucy stood on her tip toes and kissed the demon king on the cheek, then she bent down and picked up Asuka and held her up to E.N.D., who took her and wrapped his arms around her in a grateful hug. When he relaxed hug he was still holding her in his arms close enough that she could look him in the eyes, Asuka's eyes widened in recognition, and she looked back to Lucy who nodded, still smiling softly. Asuka looked back at E.N.D. and then at Lucy again, this time an evil smile playing at her lips.

"Now will you kiss him?"

Lucy laughed and nodded, turning to the demon king, who grinned a rather boyish grin as shifted Asuka to one side so that she wasn't in the way, and used his now free arm to wrap around Lucy's waist, pulling her in for a deep, passionate kiss while Asuka raised her hands in victory.

It was at this time that all of Fairy-Tail came out of their collective shocks, the first being from Asuka's act of comforting the demon king, the second from the revelation that Lucy had agreed to be his queen, and as a group shouted one of two things.

"ASUKA!"

"LUCY!"

"Asuka why did you run away from your mother like that?"

"Lucy where were you? What happened?"

"Asuka come back here!"

"Lucy you're the queen that he talked about? What will Natsu say?"

That last question was asked by Mirajane, who immediately turned her head in search of Natsu, only to realize that he wasn't there either.

"QUITE!" E.N.D. bellowed, silencing the mages once again.

"Before you ask any more questions I have two more things to tell you. First, yes, Lucy is the woman who agreed to be my queen," as he spoke he held her left hand up to reveal a ring on one of her fingers, that looked like it was made out of his solid fire with a flawless ruby embedded in it.

"Second, I'm sure you remember me saying that E.N.D. isn't my real name, it is in fact, my initials," this time as he spoke he snapped his fingers causing the torches in the alcove to burn brighter revealing his face fully for the first time. One again, all the mages stared in stunned silence at the demon king, the whites of his eyes were in fact black, with his irises being green, he did have two horns, the bases of which were just below his hairline, that grew up to the point where they added at least six inches to his height, but the detail that everyone was transfixed on now, was his spiky, wild mop of pink hair.

"E.N.D. stands for **E** therias **N** atsu **D** ragneel."

 **And that's it!**

 **First off, thank you for reading this story, it really means a lot to me that you took the time to do so.**

 **Second, I know I really changed some history here, and probably had some people out of character, especially Natsu, but he was acting the whole time that he told them the story so that they wouldn't guess it was him right away and then bombard him with question before he could tell his story, and if you think that he was being too smart, remember this was a Natsu with about 400 years life experience so you kind of expect him to be a little smarter. Also please no complaints about the dates I used, there was a lot of improvising on that part.**

 **Third, I plan for this to be a three part story, with the next chapter detailing Lucy's reaction to Natsu's full release, and the third chapter describing the events after the battle.**

 **Finally, please review, this story makes me smile at some parts and cringe at others, I want an unbiased opinion of how I did. I accept criticism, but if you just flame me I will block you. If I can't figure out how to do that I will just ignore you, I don't care either way.**

 **Baadyae- Duma**


	2. Revelations

**Jambo fellow readers, I'm back.**

 **Finally! Three weeks is a long time between updates, but just so you know, I have been writing every day except two since the last one, so it's not due to my laziness.**

 **Anywho this chapter is what happened with Natsu and Lucy shortly before the events of "Memories".**

 **I hope you enjoy.**

Revelations

Natsu's head had been hurting ever since his encounter with Zeref's thought projection earlier. The pain wasn't that of your normal headache either,on the contrary, an everyday headache was heaven compared to this, this pain was like someone was shoving a branding iron into the center of his brain, which despite what a certain perverted popsicle said, yes he did have.

The pain wasn't a new sensation either, he had first felt it on Tenrou Island last year, well seven years ago technically, but to him it felt like one year. It had happened after his confrontation with Zeref then as well, but it was no where near this powerful, then the pain was slight, easily ignored, now he was being reminded of what fire felt like to normal people, and he didn't like the feeling, not just the pain, but this feeling of DejaVu he had been getting ever since he had that fight with Jackal earlier. It was distracting to say the least and fighting this Franmalth guy is hard enough as it is. His ability to absorb the soul of any human, or even magic, that he came into contact with made Natsu's attacks less than useless, a fact which was really pissing him off.

However Franmalth really liked to talk, which gave Natsu plenty of time to recover and think about a way to beat him, not that his voice helped the dragon slayers head in any way though. The one-eyed demon's monologues did shed some light on the history of the guild of Tartaros though, and Natsu, almost against his will, found it kind of interesting, other than the fact that it was all praising the strength of demons and calling humans weak.

There was one thing that Franmalth said that had stuck in the pink(salmon) haired slayer's head for a while now, and seemed to make his head hurt even more. Franmalth said something about the creation of curses, how Master E.N.D. had pretty much invented them, basing their power of off negative feelings, Anger, Sorrow, Greed, and Pride. Even in his current predicament of Franmalth trying to absorb his, Happy's and Lucy's souls Natsu continued to think about the cyclops' words, they seemed familiar.

Natsu was dragged from his uncommonly deep state of thought when Franmalth's arms started shaking, he looked up just in time to see Franmalth shout, "TAURUS, EJECT!" and natsu saw Taurus appear in a puff of smoke, and disappear in the flash of light that signaled the closing of a spirits gate a moment later.

"ARIES, FORCED GATE CLOSURE!" Lucy shouted.

"ARIES, EJECT!"

The same thing that happened to Taurus also happened to Aries with the sudden appearance and almost immediate disappearance.

Natsu could hear the smirk in Lucy's voice as she said, "NATSU! FORCED GATE CLOSURE!"

"HE'S A SPIRIT TOO?!" The look of surprise on Franmalth's face would have caused Natsu to bust out laughing, if he wasn't, for some reason, insulted by the fact that the green demon didn't know that he wasn't a spirit. Natsu didn't know where that feeling came from, but he didn't have time to think about it, as soon as he touched the ground he ran towards Franmalth as fast as he could

Shouting, "Nice one Lucy!" Natsu punched Franmalth in his single eye.

"I'VE BEEN HAD!" the cyclops wailed in pain, since he was caught off guard he wasn't able to absorb Natsu's strength through the punch, as a result, the words, _that really hurt!_ Were running through his mind.

"Damn right you have! I'll make you pay for mistaking me for a spirit!"

"And what's wrong with being a celestial spirit?" Lucy asked crossing her arms, partially in indignation at his statement, but mostly out of modesty as her top had been torn to the point where it was basically a rag, and therefore did absolutely nothing to cover her, _ahem,_ chest.

"Nothing," Natsu said, a little fear in his voice because he realized how Lucy had taken his promise to Franmalth, "It's just that, for some reason, I feel like he should have known that I wasn't a spirit."

"Getting back to the task at hand," Franmalth interrupted, struggling to sit up from the crater that he had created when Natsu hit him, "I don't se how you will 'make me pay' when nothing you throw at me will harm me."

Natsu's eyes held a mischievous glint as he said, "Oh really?" he then punched the ground and lifted up a bolder over his head, still grinning, he threw it at Franmalth.

"So this wont hurt at all?" he asked as it flew towards its target.

Franmalth only had time for one word before the boulder struck him, so he chose to say, "Shit."

As the dust settled Natsu's fist shot into the air in victory. Franmalth lay on the ground, still partially covered in rubble, not moving. When Natsu turned around to give Lucy a grin he noticed that she had taken what was left of her shirt and tied it around her, _ahem,_ breasts so that it covered them somewhat, not modest in the least, but a far cry better than what it had been a minute ago. Natsu also noticed that the celestial mage still had her arms crossed and an upset look on her face.

"So whats wrong with being a celestial spirit?" She asked, obviously not satisfied with his answer, although he assumed that she just hadn't heard him.

"Nothing, it's just I thought that I feel that he, like he specifically, should know that I'm not a celestial spirit."

It wasn't until she asked the question a third time that he realized the trouble that he was in. Happy, who had figured things out a few minutes ago, was hiding behind a column, which had stayed standing by some miracle, a short distance away.

Natsu tried to avoid the question this time, "look it doesn't matter, I said he'll pay for his mistake and now he has, let's keep going, we still have a long way to go before we beat everyone."

By the look on Lucy's face he was still in a lot of trouble, but he was saved when when Franmalth softly laughed and got her attention off the problem between her and Natsu. Franmalth's laughter continued, as if he knew something that they didn't and was finding it funny enough to show his amusement despite the amount of pain he was in. Natsu ran to Lucy and she stepped up still slightly behind him, her whip ready in her hand. Happy decided that the blonde and pink (salmon) haired mages were much safer to hide behind than the column and flew till he was behind Lucy, holding on to her with his tail and ready to get her out of there if Natsu told him to.

"Defeat the rest of us?" the demon asked, still lying on the floor, "you can't even defeat me."

"Then what do you call this?" Lucy asked, gesturing to the fallen cyclops.

"I'm not defeated. I am immortal, you can't possibly bring me down," Franmalth said, causing Lucy's eyes to widen in shock, and Natsu's eyes to narrow in recognition. "Although, I suppose I do need some respite, but I believe that a quick trip to Hell's Core shall suffice."

At this Natsu's eyes widened, as the pain in his skull grew more intense for a moment, and then was gone, replaced with memories. Memories of a time when he handled problems differently, of a time when he had a brother, of the time he had been prepared to fight Igneel to the death if necessary, a time when went by a different name.

Whether it was because Hell's Core was a place of rebirth, or simply the most recent familiar phrase, that had caused the proverbial dam to burst Natsu didn't know. Not that he really cared either.

"Franmalth wait!" Natsu called out before the demon had a chance to disappear.

The cyclops started to sit up, confused by the sudden desperation in the dragon slayers voice. He hadn't expected Natsu to to be the kind to beg for mercy under any circumstance so he doubted that was what the man wanted. But Franmalth could hope couldn't he?

"What is it? You going to beg for mercy? A quick death? Oh you have no idea how much I would love that! How much! How much!"

Natsu face-palmed, "No! I'm not going to beg for mercy!" he removed his hand from his head and looked Franmalth dead in the eyes…well eye… and said, "I want you to take us to Mard Geer."

Franmalth's eye widened in surprise, he wasn't even aware that the humans knew about the Underworld King. He was even more confused by the words that next came from the mouth of the human girl beside the man.

"Who's Mard Geer?"

This confirmed that the fairies had no idea about Mard Geer. So how did the dragon slayer even know that name?

Franmalth was surprised, yet again, by the answer the pink haired one gave.

"Mard Geer is the strongest among the Demon Gates, he is also known as the Underworld King, and the one who would lead the guild of Tartaros should Master E.N.D. be absent."

The girl raised her eyebrows, "How did you even know that? Why would you want to go to him?"

"I'll explain later, and I have an offer to make him."

"What could a human possibly have to offer the mighty Mard Geer?"

Natsu looked at Lucy and Happy with a concerned look, as if he had suddenly remembered something.

"Lucy, Happy, do you trust me?"

They looked at him in shock, then at each other as if asking whether or not they had heard him right. They looked back at him and nodded, slowly, like they were still confused by his question.

Natsu went into further detail, "Like, if I thought that I knew how to stop this battle, but it seemed crazy, no, stupid, insane, but I just knew that this was the only sure fire way to end all of this, would you trust me enough to let me try it?"

Lucy and Happy again exchanged looks. When they looked back to Natsu Happy spoke first, "Natsu, you're always crazy, or stupid, or insane, but we always follow you, and we always come out on top. If you think that this is the way we can win, then I would go so far as to stop eating fish if it would help."

Natsu grinned at Happy, "Thanks Happy, and don't worry, you don't have to give up fish for this plan."

Happy sighed in relief, wiping his brow.

Lucy then spoke up, "Natsu… I trust you with my life, with my friends lives, and even with the world as a whole, even if you can't tell what kind of mushroom is good to eat, or don't know how to use a door, you have never been wrong on your judgement calls. If you think its best, then I'll follow you to the end."

Natsu's smile only grew wider at, what he considered, Lucy's praise.

"So you two are in?"

Lucy nodded while Happy thrust his hand into the air shouting, "AYE SIR!"

"I hate to interrupt this beautiful moment," Franmalth said sarcastically, "but I have to ask again. What could you possibly have to offer Lord Mard Geer?"

Natsu looked him in the eye, stood a little taller, and boldly stated,

"I believe that I have the knowledge, and the capability to fully release Master E.N.D."

"WHAAAATTT?!" the other three beings in the room cried.

"YOU THINK THAT YOU, A LOWLY HUMAN, CAN RELEASE OUR MASTER?" Franmalth howled.

"WOW NATSU, I DIDN'T KNOW YOU CULD USE SUCH BIG WORDS!" Happy exclaimed.

"I think you're missing the point here cat…" Lucy said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Natsu glared at them. Then, pointing to them in turn, he addressed each of the issues, "Yes I do think that I can undo the seal on E.N.D. Igneel is the one who put it on him, and Igneel is the one who raised me. The whole reason I want to go to Mard Geer is because if I know him, and I do, he carries that book with him at all times, hell he probably sleeps with the thing like a damn teddy bear.

"Thank you for your vote of confidence Happy, you know that I'm not a complete idiot right?

"And Lucy, you're right, Happy is missing the point. Also if you really meant what you said earlier than you will go with this, I am positive that this is the best way to put a stop to everything that's going wrong. So are you two still with me?" that last sentence was directed at both Happy and Lucy.

Lucy really felt like arguing that this was the worst idea that Natsu ever had, but one look at his face told her that he had never been more desperate, or sure of himself. And before she could say anything he continued.

"Look, I know that we can probably beat them for now, but what Franmalth said was true, they are immortal, meaning that even if we grind them all to dust, they will just reappear somewhere else later, and someone else will have to deal with them, but this way I know that we can stop their threat now, so they'll never hurt anyone again. I know that this will work, and I'm doing it whether you like it or not, but I'd feel a lot better if you would get behind me on this. I don't want you to get mad at me, and I don't want you to stop trusting me. So please tell me, are you with me on this?"

Lucy looked down as she thought, she remembered what she had said just a minute ago and mulled it over , trying to form an argument against it, only to find that she couldn't convince herself that she was wrong when she had spoken earlier. The blonde looked back up at Natsu thinking about what he had said, thinking that something was wrong with it, then she realized that he wasn't asking permission, he was asking for her blessing, and support for his plan. No matter what she said, he was going forward with it. Lucy had never seen him more confident about a plan than he was right now, and his confidence was contagious. Even though she was horrified about what he was suggesting, she found herself believing in him, and she didn't even know the details of his strategy.

Donning a look of confidence, Lucy nodded, "Natsu I meant every word that I said before. I said that if you thought it was best I would follow you to the end, and as a celestial wizard, I always keep my promises."

Happy again thrust his hand into the air shouting "AYE SIR!"

Natsu sighed and smiled at them in gratitude. He then turned back to Franmalth and said, "Now, will you please take us to the Underworld King?"

"And why should I?"

"I told you already, I believe that I can release Master E.N.D."

"And what makes you so sure of yourself? The Nine Demon Gates had combined their efforts yet still the seal held firm. How are you so different in such a way that you can break it?"

"I'm not going to break it, I'm going to release it. It's like, if the seal were a door that you wanted to open, so you try to break it down only to find that it is too strong, so you get your friends to try to break it down together, but still fail, so I'm coming with a key to unlock the door and open it that way, the way it was meant to be done."

"And just who gave you this proverbial key?"

"My father, Igneel, king of the fire dragons and the one who sealed away your demon king in the first place."

Franmalth opened his mouth as if to object, then shut it again rethinking his argument. Igneel had indeed been the one to seal away Master E.N.D., so his adoptive son might possess the 'key' required to undo the seal, but this didn't answer the question of why he would want to undo the seal, or what his motives were. So the green demon asked Natsu a different question.

"How do I know that this isn't some sort of assassination plot for Lord Mard Geer?"

"Even if it was, would you insult Mard Geer by saying that you believe two puny humans and one exceed pose any threat to his life? Also if it was an assassination attempt, he would want to punish us for our insolence himself."

Franmalth nodded, conceding the point, "Just how is it that you know so much about us? About Lord Mard Geer?"

Lucy and Happy looked at Natsu, both asking the same question with their eyes.

"When I release E.N.D. everything will be made clear."

Franmalth frowned, he felt that he wasn't going anything else out of this conversation and so began to consider his options. He could simply vanish back to Hell's Core, be revived and rejoin the fight, but if what the boy said was true, than he would be passing up a golden opportunity to revive the demon king already, and that would surly be punished if it was discovered. The cyclops knew that he didn't have the strength to defeat them now so that wasn't an option. Or he could do as they asked and take them to the Underworld King, once there he could pass judgment, if they were successful then Franmalth would be congratulated, if they failed then the humans and the exceed would be crushed.

Unsurprisingly, the demon went with the last option.

"Fine then, I will take you to Lord Mard Geer, and he will decide your fate."

Franmalth gathered his strength and stood, then turned and started walking down the hallway motioning for them to follow.

Natsu grabbed Lucy's hand and took off after Franmalth, as the demon lead them through a maze of hallways. As they walked Natsu looked around the halls, remembering some as if he had just walked down them yesterday, while others might as well have never existed for all he knew. It seemed that not all of his memories had returned, which was why he needed Franmalth to lead them to Mard Geer, hopefully the rest would be released when he undid the seal.

Lucy stared at her and Natsu's hands and fought back a blush. He had held her hand and dragged her around before, but something about this time seemed different, like he was holding on for his sake, his reassurance, not just to guide her. Of course that wasn't the only thing that she realized was inconsistent.

"Hey Natsu," Lucy said.

"Yeah?"

"Happy had a point earlier, about you using big words."

"Please don't tell me that you think I'm a complete idiot too."

"No, its not that, it's just that you don't use those words normally, like your entire speech style changed between the end of that fight, and you telling Franmalth to take us to the guild-master."

"It's because I can't let them see me just as a pathetic human who is not only weak, but stupid too. The chances of them giving me a shot at releasing E.N.D. are pretty slim as it is, if they have too low of an opinion of me than they'll probably just try to kill us. But as it is they are desperate to free him, so this is the best chance we got."

"Which brings us to my next question, why do we need to release E.N.D.? He is the strongest demon that Zeref ever made, isn't this fight hard enough without him joining in?"

"He won't join the fight. He's going to stop it. I know that you still have a lot of questions Lucy, but when we're all done here I promise that I will answer them. For now I need to focus and prepare myself."

Before Lucy could reply the sound of opening doors caught her attention, up ahead Franmalth was pushing open a large stone door. As they walked through Lucy found herself in a rather large room, it was entirely covered in grey stones and rectangular, it had what looked like a meeting table, though there were no chairs, and past the head of the table was an alcove that was elevated above the rest of the room, and in the alcove a tall looking man with pale skin and long black hair sat on a large, and well embellished throne.

"Franmalth, why have you come here?"

As the cyclops began to recount the story, Lucy began to look around the room when her eyes landed on Natsu she stopped and stared, he was looking at Mard Geer with what appeared to be exasperation. Before she could ask what was on his mind she heard the underworld king laugh.

"Whether or not he is the son of Igneel, what makes him think that unsealing our master is something that he can accomplish?"

Lucy huffed in annoyance, she knew that Natsu was dense with some things…well most things… but if he knew anything, it was what he was capable of. If Natsu said that he could do it, especially with the determination that she had seen in his eyes earlier, than he could.

Knowing that argument wouldn't sway the demon lord much though, she went with a different approach.

"Why not let him try at least? Your "Face" plan failed, so if he says that he can release E.N.D. why don't you let him try?"

The underworld king just laughed harder at Lucy's argument.

"What did I say?" Lucy asked looking at Franmalth, who seemed just as confused as her, looking at Natsu she saw him glaring at Mard Geer, but he slowly answered her question as Mard Geer finally slowed to a chuckle.

"He's laughing because the the "Face" plan hasn't failed yet," Natsu said, earning a surprised look from the demon lord, and a confused look from Happy, Lucy, and Franmalth, he continued, "there are more than three thousand faces on the continent, each one forcing the magic out of their area, Wendy only stopped one, meaning there's still a hell of a lot left."

Lucy paled while Mard Geer spoke.

"That is correct, dragon slayer, so as you can see I do not need anyone's help to revive our master."

"But, it would be better to bring him back without the use of face," Natsu said, earning a confused look from Mard Geer, "Because while all the demons of Tartaros use curses, E.N.D. uses curses and magic, its one of his many talents. Meaning that if you used face to free him then he would be, at best, half strength."

Now Mard Geer's confused look turned into a suspicious glare.

"That is correct as well, tell me how you came by that knowledge."

Natsu smiled smugly as he spoke, "I know that the same way that I know that this isn't the actual throne room. This is simply a meeting room for the Nine Gates, or ten since I can see that you have added a member, and that is your chair at the table. And it seems in E.N.D's absence your ego has grown, as is evidenced by the rather fancy throne that you now sit on. The real throne room can only be opened by E.N.D. himself.

"Like I told Franmalth earlier, when I unseal E.N.D. you will see how I know everything."

Mard Geer was still scowling at Natsu as he spoke, "If you really know so much, then tell me how to release our master."

"All you have to do is read his book. It is the release spell."

The underworld king looked more than a little sassy, which really surprised Lucy, as he opened the book and turned it towards the group, revealing that it was written in some ancient looking runes.

"Even Seilah couldn't read these. Are you saying that you can?"

Natsu, who was still grinning, simply nodded in response, surprising Happy.

"You can!?" exclaimed the blue cat.

"Yeah, remember the story of Erza teaching me how to read?"

"Erza can too?"

"No, but remember how I said that Igneel taught me how to read, but nobody believed me because I couldn't read the job request? Well Igneel did teach me how to read, but not the standard script that Fiore uses, he taught me ancient draconian, the written language of the dragons. The spoken language is still the same it's just written differently."

Natsu pointed to the book, "that is ancient draconian, and unless Metalicana, or Grandeeney, taught Gajeel, or Wendy, I am the only living person who can read it."

Mard Geer seemed to debate with himself over everything that he had heard, but no matter how many times he tried to avoid it, everything came back to the fact that the human was right about his master's decreased strength. And the fact that it would be an immense advantage if the demon king was at full strength when he was released.

"How could we be sure you won't just try to destroy the book?"

Before Natsu answered he looked at Lucy, who braced herself, then nodded in understanding, and permission, while Happy gave a determined look. The pink (salmon) haired slayer smiled in both gratitude and apology, before tuning back to the demon lord.

"You may take my friends as collateral."

Mard Geer's eyes widened at the offer and, after a short pause, nodded his agreement. Franmalth softly laughed and started to extend his arms towards the fairies.

"Uhh… one moment," Natsu said, turning to Franmalth, "I need to have a word with you first."

He took the demon off to the side and spoke to him in a tone so quiet that only they could hear. Lucy cocked her head to the side in curiosity, wondering what on earth Natsu had to say to the demon. After a few seconds of quiet discussion, the cyclops visibly stiffened, and nodded slowly, causing the dragon slayer to grunt in satisfaction. When they turned back Franmalth looked a little pale.

Extending his arms once again, Franmalth restrained Lucy and Happy. Not holding them the way that he had when he was extracting their souls earlier, this time he simply held them by their wrists and ankles and, Lucy noticed, rather loosely at that.

Natsu walked up to Mard Geer, who handed him the book, but stayed by him for additional security purposes. Natsu took the book, opened it to the first page, and started reading, silently, to himself. After a few minutes, and a few pages, of silence the demon lord spoke up.

"Why aren't you speaking the spell?"

When Natsu responded, Lucy could tell that he was on the verge of crying.

"It's not just a spell to release E.N.D. It's also a letter, from Igneel to me."

He swallowed a lump in his throat as the demon lord, who didn't look quite convinced, probed further.

"What does it say?"

Natsu glared at the demon as he answered.

"I said it was to me. Not you. But the basics are him telling me why he gave me the key to use the spell, why he sealed away E.N.D., and telling me…" Natsu swallowed again as a tear rolled down on cheek, "he says… that he trust me to make the right choice… for everyone."

Mard Geer looked unimpressed, while Happy, Lucy, and even Franmalth, had tears rolling down their cheeks.

Natsu coughed and wiped his face with one hand before he continued.

"Alright, now I'm at the instructions and warnings, it says that I just read the spell and the seal will come undone, it also says that the book will burst into flames once the spell is completed. So don't you dare harm them when that happens!" this last order was directed at Franmalth who paled even more.

As Natsu turned back the book to read over the incantation once real quick he groaned in annoyance.

"This spell is written in rhymes. Why are all spells done in rhyme?" he whined, looking to Mard Geer, who just raised an eyebrow as if to say 'get on with it'.

Natsu groaned again, cleared his throat, and began to read the spell

" _ **As the spell is spoken,**_

 _ **Let the seal be broken.**_

 _ **Open gates of heaven, reveal your grace,**_

 _ **Release the memories of the master's strength, true name, and face.**_

 _ **Open gates of hell, release the master's power,**_

 _ **That his enemies may burn this very hour.**_

 _ **Let the demons their oaths fulfill,**_

 _ **To obey their master's word, and will.**_

 _ **As I finish the spell, I release the seal,**_

 _ **That restrains the master, Etherias Natsu Dragneel!"**_

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other four occupants of the room as the book, which had started smoking halfway through the spell, burst into flame. The look of surprise on Lucy's face matched even Mard Geer's, though she also had a look of worry as the flames grew. Being with Natsu for so long she had seen many kinds of fire, but none quite like this. The flames burned with an unnatural shade of crimson as they spread across Natsu's body.

Natsu, who had his eyes closed, shifted as if in pain, and Lucy was conflicted, every molecule of her body was screaming at her to get out of there, while every fiber of her soul was screaming at her to help him, as a result she stayed right where she was, rooted in place with indecision.

Wherever the flames licked Natsu's skin it turned ink black, scorching a pattern of fire all over his body. When Natsu eventually opened his eyes the fires rushed to them, turning his whites coal black. When they reached his eyes his mouth opened as well, and they entered as an earth shattering roar escaped.

As the sound rushed throughout the room Franmalth released Lucy as he brought his hands to his ears. Lucy then disobeyed her body's order to run away from the unnatural sight and sound, and instead ran towards the cry of pain.

Natsu saw her coming and began to panic. He knew that something was different with his transformation, something new was happening.

"STOP!" he cried, causing her to do just that. He wasn't sure how much more violent the change would be, though he knew that it had just gotten a lot more painful. His hands felt a burning sensation that he was not liking one bit, the same feeling was in his feet and shoulders, and his head felt as if it would split open.

Natsu put his hands to his forehead and found not only to horns growing rapidly, but also a pointed, devil's tail which had followed his hand's movements to his head and was also feeling the two new objects just beneath his hairline.

As Natsu's horns grew, he noticed a difference in his hands and feet, they became red, rough, almost scaly, and talons and claws had replaced his nails. His horns finished growing and his hands done changing, he began to hug himself, vainly trying to ease the pain in his shoulders. Then, at last, with a shout that was slightly louder than the continuous roar, he threw his arms down as to dragon wings sprouted from his shoulders tearing the shirt from his back.

His transformation completed natsu fell to his knees, exhausted still feeling some tingling all over his body. His eyes were screwed shut and he twitched every few seconds.

Mard Geer and Franmalth both fell to the floor in a bowing position, as Mard Geer said,

"Welcome back my master, how are you feeling?"

"Give me a few minutes Geer," Natsu said, bringing one hand to his head, "my body has transformed but my mind is still catching up. My memories are still returning slowly."

Lucy and Happy each took a tentative step forward, not entirely sure whether or not Natsu regaining all his memories was a good thing.

"Natsu…?" Lucy called softly.

This snapped Franmalth out of his state of shock, causing him to realize that he had let go of the celestial mage, which in turn caused him to panic. Still not being used to the presence of his master, and fearing punishment from Mard Geer for letting the girl and cat slip from his grasp, he quickly recaptured them… though, not as gently as he had before, causing Lucy to cry out.

Natsu's head snapped up at the sound, though it had been brief he recognized the sound of pain, and seeing Franmalth holding Lucy tightly, and seeing the look on her face, he became very angry. The irises of his eyes turned red and he roared with his rage.

"FRANMALTH! WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU!?"

The demon in question released Lucy and happy immediately, waving his hands in the air frantically.

"NO! WAIT! I DIDN'T HARM HER ON PURPOSE! PLEASE MASTER E.N.D. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!"

Natsu slammed his right hand, which had his thumb and forefinger rubbing together, into the open palm of his left hand and shouted,

"GATE OF GREED! FRANMALTH! FORCED CLOSURE!"

Franmalth cried out as if in pain, as hundreds of bluish-white orbs shot out of his body and began to slowly drift upwards. When they had stopped the cyclops himself began glowing, still wailing.

"To close my gate so quickly while I still had so many souls in my collection! How much stronger has he become? How much? HOW MUCH?!"

With Franmalth's cries dying away along with the light, which had revealed that the cyclops had simply vanished, Natsu then turned towards Lucy and Happy, unbeknownst to him his eyes were still red from his earlier anger.

In that moment, when Natsu turned, after having just shown his power, his terrifying anger, and with his eyes that unnatural shade of crimson, the battle between Lucy's heart's desire to run to him, and her body's desire to flee the monstrosity before her was decided, her instincts took over, and she bolted for the exit.

"Lucy wait!" Natsu called out.

She was halfway to the exit when her heart seemed to jump back into action, telling her that she needed to turn around. Before she could change course though, multiple chains appeared out of flames, cris-crossing the doorway like a net. Lucy crashed into the chains, which softened her landing, but were still hot enough to burn her hands.

Giving a brief cry of pain, she fell to her knees as she examined her hands, not truly worried as the burns weren't really serious, but still feeling the need to double-check just to be safe.

The sound of rapid footsteps caught her attention and she looked up to see Natsu and Happy rushing towards her.

"Lucy!" they cried in a worried unison.

She immediately looked down again, feeling ashamed that she ran away from the dragon slayer like that when she really had no reason to.

Natsu however interpreted this as an act of fear, and began to worry. Kneeling beside her he gently, if swiftly, took her hands I his to assess the damage. Seeing that it was minor he heaved a sigh of relief, and began to rub her burns, gently, with his now taloned hands.

Lucy gasped in surprise and relief as the pain decreased greatly.

"I'm sorry," Natsu nearly whispered, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, or scare you, I just didn't want you to leave yet, it's still not safe out there. I didn't want the chains to be hot but I'm still trying to remember all the details of this power, so the temperature control felt a little awkward."

He kept on a apologizing while she still stared at his hands, wondering how something so rough and scaly looking, could be so gentle. He was stroking his thumbs across her burns so softly that she could actually feel the pain become smaller.

She continued looking at his hands holding hers, fearing that if she looked up at his face she would get the urge to run again, and she knew that he had been hurt by that, she didn't want to do so again. His voice was the same, and if she thought of his hands as dragon claws, she knew that she could keep calm enough to talk to him. So she interrupted his endless apology.

"It's alright, I'm ok, I'm sorry that I ran, I was just startled because it all happened so fast,"

She heard his sigh of relief and asked,

"Natsu, is this really happening or am I dreaming?" he stiffened a little at her question, "Are you really… E.N.D."

He sighed in resignation before he answered.

"No… you're not dreaming Lucy. I am E.N.D. This is all actually happening."

"Why didn't you ever tell anyone?" she asked, fearing his answer.

"Because my memories were sealed away along with my powers, I didn't know myself until during that fight with Franmalth."

The celestial mage sighed in relief, she was afraid that he either was plotting against them, or simply didn't trust them, didn't trust _her,_ enough to say anything.

Then she remembered everything that the cyclops had said about E.N.D., about his power, anger, and cruelty, and she began to feel a little bit of doubt return to her. Not just doubt, but fear, fear that the happy, carefree, energetic… adorable at times, annoying at others, that Natsu, the Natsu who had made her laugh countless times, had been there for her when she cried, and supported her in everything that she did, that he understood anyways… was gone. That he was nothing more than a memory, or worse, an illusion.

Happy seemed to have a similar course of thought, as he asked, "Natsu, is what they say about you… is it true?"

Natsu went stiff again, and Lucy had the feeling that if he wasn't still holding her hands and stroking her burns, he would have clenched them into fists.

"Not all of it, not even most of it. But I've done a lot of terrible things in my life, things that I wish I didn't remember."

"But that's a long story, and one that I don't feel like telling more than once, so first I want to gather everyone on the guild, so I can tell you all at once." He squeezed Lucy's hands lightly as he continued, "But I want you to know Lucy, that I'm still the same Natsu you knew, none of that was an act, none of it was fake, or temporary, that was, and is, who I am. I've changed from the master of Tartaros, and having no memory of that time really made it easier, but like with Jelall, those memories don't stay sealed, and now they're back, and they're my burden to carry, but that doesn't mean that I have to become like the person they show me to be."

Lucy felt nothing but immense relief at his words, the fact that all her fears were for nothing was more than she had hoped for. She stayed silent, simply relishing this feeling.

Natsu however, who seemed to be a bit pessimistic today, interpreted her silence as unbelieving, and began to speak again.

"But now, with everything that's happened, Tartaros rising the way it has, and all the people who have been killed in…in my name…"

The realization of just what that meant hit Natsu like a ton of bricks, and his hands, which were still holding Lucy's, started shaking.

"Oh my god…" he said in a voice that was little more than a whisper, "Oh my god, all those people… it's because of me that they're…" he couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence, and he had already started crying.

Lucy couldn't take it anymore, she looked up at Natsu, he still looked like a demon, but his eyes had gone back to their natural green color, and were overflowing with tears, his bottom lip was trembling as he held back a sob, and his whole body was shuddering. In other words, despite his transformation, and her body's earlier insistence that he was a monster, her heart identified this as the Natsu Dragneel that she had met a long time ago, and now he was in pain.

"It's my fault… I'm the reason that they…"

Lucy hated seeing him like this, she hated the pain in his voice, the sorrow and guilt in his eyes, this wasn't what he was supposed to be like, and to see him like this… hurt _her._ She wanted nothing more in that moment, than to comfort him, so she did the first thing that she thought of, she stood a little straighter on her knees, leaned towards the now rambling demon king, and kissed his cheek ever so lightly.

Natsu's immediately stopped talking as his eyes widened in shock, Lucy ignored his reaction, and spoke.

"Don't say that. Don't think about what happened, not now, first think about what you're going to do next. How are we going to stop this war?"

Natsu blinked a few times before a determined look settled on his face.

"You're right, there's no time for self pity right now. First we need to get everyone together, so I can tell you all my story, Fairy-Tail and Tartaros both need to hear it. Then we need to rest up, and rebuild magnolia. After that…" he paused as if not wanting to say what he had to say next, "after that… I will have to resume my responsibilities as a king. I'll need to leave Fairy-Tail for a while and… train them, see if I can change them… I'll be gone for… maybe a few years..."

Lucy's face fell at the news, but she immediately covered it up with an expressionless nod as she spoke, "I understand Natsu, and the rest of the guild will too, if you need to go than we will wait for the day that you can return," she said blinking away tears.

Not before Natsu saw them though, and that look, and those tears, gave him hope, and a reckless amount of courage.

"Lucy..." she looked up at him as he called her name, "I'm going to be the demon king again right?" she nodded, and Natsu was quickly losing the courage that he had gained earlier, making it harder to say what he wanted to, but the thought that he might be leaving for a few years gave him a sense of desperation, which was all he needed to finish.

"And you know… every king needs a queen."

Lucy stared at him, and her brain stopped working for a moment, when it started working again, it seemed to be directly connected to her mouth, as she thought out loud, "So who do you want for your queen?"

Natsu deadpanned, "Really Lucy?"

Happy hovered above them giggling, "I think that she's in denial Natsu."

Lucy's head snapped up towards the blue exceed, the matter at hand completely forgotten in the wake of his insult, "Hey cat! What's tha…?"

She was cut off by Natsu pressing his pair of surprisingly soft lips against hers, causing her eyes to widen. The kiss lasted only a few seconds, which felt like an eternity, before he backed away staring into her eyes, which were still wide with shock.

"You Lucy, I'm asking you to be my queen."

Lucy's eyes found some way to grow even wider, as she fully processed what he said. Natsu continued, knowing that if he stopped he would have a hard time starting again.

"Lucy, I've felt like this for a while now… and…"

Lucy returned the favor, leaning forward and silencing him with her lips. Natsu's eyes widened much like Lucy's had, before slowly closing and returning the kiss.

Lucy leaned back to speak.

"Yes Natsu," she said leaning in to kiss him again, she had been somewhat surprised at how easy it was to come to her decision. She didn't need to know why, when, or how Natsu had fallen in love with her, all she needed to know right now was that he did love her, and the giddiness she felt at that thought was answer enough for her.

Her surprise, however, was nothing compared to that of Mard Geer's. In his masters 15 minutes of being released, Mard Geer had seen the demon king banish one of his loyal followers for harming a mortal, stopped said mortal from running into a war zone out of concern for her, ran to her when she had been hurt so that he could comfort her as well as ease her pain, and last but not least, he had asked her to be his queen, AND SHE ACCEPTED!

"Master E.N.D. I must…"

He was cut off as Natsu, who was still enjoying kissing Lucy, had to break off said kiss to glare at him. The master of Tartaros slowly stood, plucking Happy out of the air and handing him to Lucy to hold, figuring that she would want some comfort when she witnessed his temper, though she had seen Erza mad more than a few times, so maybe she would be just fine. Natsu turned and walked toward the demon lord slowly, eyes turning red again, as he spoke.

"You must what Geer? Protest? Need I remind you that I am the king here, and therefore whoever I want to be my queen, I will make my queen. Am I understood?"

Mard Geer nodded slowly, trying to keep his face expressionless, but failed to keep the fear out of his eyes. Natsu continued to stare at him as though contemplating something. Then, seeming to have come to a decision, he slammed his hands together and shouted,

"OPEN! GATE OF GREED! FRANMALTH!"

The green cyclops appeared out of a golden light, similar to the way that he had vanished, and was on his hands and knees, bowing to his master and begging forgiveness before the light had even faded.

The demon king cut him off before he got too far into his pleas.

"Franmalth, go to one of the treasure chambers and bring back a good selection of precious stones. And take him with you," he said while pointing to Happy, "if any harm comes to him you will answer to me understood?"

Franmalth nodded vigorously while Natsu ignored him, knowing what the answer would be, turning to Happy he said, "Happy go with him and memorize the path, then come back so you can show Lucy the way later, ok?"

Happy thrust his hand into the air and loudly proclaimed, "AYE SIR!"

With that the exceed and the demon left to find the jewels in the treasure chamber. Leaving behind a confused Lucy and Mard Geer.

The demon king turned back to his second in command.

"Geer, I want you to gather the nine to the throne room, tell them that I have an announcement, and that while they are there I want them to remain silent and not pick any fights with the humans, I will deal with you all later, but first I have a story to tell."

The demon lord bowed, saying, "Yes my master."

Natsu turned and walked to Lucy, helping her up he lead her toward the throne that Mard Geer had recently been occupying. Pausing in front of it only briefly, Natsu took his right hand and back-handed the ornate chair, causing it to crumble and scatter across the room. At this Mard Geer winced, but didn't say anything.

Natsu stepped over the remains of the throne and placed his hand on the back of the alcove, lines of fire raced along the surface of the wall, outlining a large pair of double doors, which opened to reveal a circular room with an alcove in the wall opposite the doors.

As Natsu lead Lucy over to the far alcove, the room lit up, due to the torches that sprang to life when the demon king passed them.

In the alcove across the room there was a simple throne that appeared to be made out of a fire that had turned to a silvery metal.

Upon reaching the throne, Natsu released Lucy's hand, and sat down, closing his eyes and heaving a sigh of relief.

"I'd forgotten how comfortable this thing was," he said, a content smile gracing his lips.

Lucy stood in what felt like an awkward silence for a few moments before Natsu's eyes opened again and he motioned her to come closer. She complied, coming to stand right next to where he sat.

"Have a seat, you look tired."

The celestial mage glanced around before saying, "there's only one chair."

Natsu rolled his eyes, "Come on Luce, you can sit in my lap."

"E-EH?" she exclaimed, too overwhelmed by his offer to notice his new nickname for her.

Natsu's grin grew at her reaction, "you know, you're really cute when you blush."

Obviously, this comment only caused her to blush more.

"N-Natsu, are yo-EEP!"

She ended her question with a surprised cry, as the demon king had used his tail to pull her into his lap by wrapping it around her waist. Once she had reached her destination, sitting in his lap with her back to him, he wrapped his arms around her and sighed contentedly.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

By some miracle, her blush got even worse, but then she gave up and simply relaxed, closing her eyes, and leaning into his chest as he held her tightly, with both his arms and tail.

They sat like that for a few minutes, both of them with their eyes closed, before a familiar teasing caught their attention.

"You liiiiiiike each other."

Lucy's eyebrows furrowed, before she opened her eyes to glare at the blue fur-ball. Before she could say anything however, Natsu spoke up.

"No Happy, I love her, and she loves me. Right Luce?"

Said spirit mage blushed and turned to look at the dragon slayer. Upon locking eyes with him, her expression softened and she simply said "yes" before leaning in to kiss him again.

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat, and Lucy, rather begrudgingly, broke the kiss to look at the one who had asked for attention. Franmalth was standing awkwardly to the side, holding an armful of gems, Happy, who was floating right beside him, also hade an armload of the precious stones.

Natsu sighed and stood up, bringing Lucy with him, and walked over to the strange duo, still holding his future queen by the waist with his tail, and looked over the selection. Then he turned to Lucy.

"Pick one Luce."

"What's it for?"

Natsu rolled his eyes, "you'll see. Now just pick one that you like."

Lucy shrugged and turned back to the piles of gemstones. Eventually she picked a ruby that was red as Natsu's wings and flawless. Turning to the demon king, she handed it to him saying, "This one."

Natsu took the ruby from her ad turned it over in his hands, looking at it from every angle. After a moment he grunted, seemingly satisfied, and pulled Lucy closer with his tail, he then grabbed her left hand, held it up to his face, and kissed her ring finger. Letting her hand fall away form his lips a bit, he took the gemstone and held it against her ring finger. A fire sprang to life for a brief moment where he held the ruby, when it had died down the blonde saw that he had made a ring for her, using his solid fire to form the ring itself and the ruby as the centerpiece of the band.

"This ring is a promise," Natsu explained, "for me to give it to you is for me to promise to love, protect, and care for you. For you to wear it is the same as you promising to do the same for me."

Lucy smiled warmly, nodding her understanding, "than I will wear it happily."

"It will also," Natsu continued, smiling, "provide you with some protection because there are shielding spells on the ruby, and it will tell me if you are ever in danger. Lastly, all the demons of Zeref will see this and know who you are, and that if they disrespect you, they will have to deal with me."

Lucy smiled and leaned in to give him another kiss, one which he gladly returned.

They were stopped again, this time by the sound of Mard Geer clearing his throat.

Natsu growled, wondering if they were going to get so much as a moments peace today. He looked at the demon lord and raised an eyebrow, silently telling him that his interruption had better be for a good reason.

"I have contacted the Nine my master."

Natsu nodded, sighing in resignation, he wasn't looking forward to what he had to do next.

"Ok. Thank you Geer. Now Lucy," he said, as he pushed on the wall of the alcove, revealing a hidden door, "as much as I love what you're wearing, I think it's a little to revealing for a public appearance," the celestial mage looked down and blushed, "go down this hall and it will take you to the treasure chambers, I'm sure you can find something that will fit there."

"Hey!" Happy cried.

"What is it?" Natsu asked.

"If there was a short-cut the whole time, why did I have to go with Franmalth?"

"Because I wanted some alone time with my fiancé."

"You're mean!" Happy huffed crossing his arms

"Come on don't be like that. Now I want you to go with Lucy, and help her out in any way you can. I need to start gathering Fairy-Tail so they can hear my story."

"What about us?" Lucy asked.

"I'll keep in touch with telepathy so you can hear everything, that way you can also stay hidden till I'm done, if they see you, or recognize me to soon than they will take forever to calm down,"

"Ok," Lucy said, "Since when do you have telepathy?"

" _That's the best way to communicate on the battlefield my dear, any king worth his throne is either telepathic, or has someone who is close by."_ Natsu spoke in her mind.

" _I see"_ she thought back with a smile.

"Now you two get going, the Nine Gates are almost here, and I have a very important meeting to head up." He said grinning.

She grinned back and gave him one last kiss before he released her, and she went with Happy to the door. Pausing in the doorway, she turned around.

"Hey Natsu, what did you say to Franmalth when he was about to take he and Happy hostage?"

"I told him not to harm you, or touch you wrong."

"And what did you threaten him with?"

"You don't wanna know."

After a moment's hesitation, Lucy shrugged and walked down the hall closing the door behind her. She was only a few steps down when she heard Natsu's voice in her head.

" _Welcome to Tartaros Fairy-Tail, I am master E.N.D. king of the demons of Zeref."_

 **Whew, I did it. Sorry again about the long wait, I hadn't planned this chapter out as much as I should have, so there was a lot of add libbing.**

 **Anyways, I hoped you liked it!**

 **As always, be sure to read and review, I read each and every one of the reviews and they really make my day when I hear (read?) what you guys have to say.**

 **One more chapter left! I'll try to make sure the wait isn't as long as this last one, but no promises, sorry I'm a slow typer at times, some days I would get a paragraph, others (Like the last two) I would type out like five pages. No consistency whatsoever.**

 **One final note, when I upload the last chapter I will be changing the name of the story, nothing drastic, just something that will go with the title of the last chapter.**

 **Baadyae- Duma**


	3. Visions

**Jambo fellow readers I have returned yet again!**

 **Sorry it took so long, during that time when I was suffering from writers block in some areas, I had many inspirational ideas for others, that's just how my brain works.**

 **And as a result, after almost six weeks!? You have an 11K word chapter!**

 **Also a new cover! Credit for that goes to acwhitewolf168 on**

 **Check her page out, she has some amazing work!**

 **Time for the final chapter to "Memories of the Past, Visions for the Future".**

 **I hope you enjoy.**

Visions

One year, that's how long it took to rebuild Magnolia.

As Natsu stood with Lucy on the edge of town, he began to think about everything that happened since the release of his powers.

"It stands for **E** therias **N** atsu **D** ragneel."

Ten minutes after Natsu said that, he and Lucy were still waiting for the guild to calm down. At first he had tried to answer the rapid fire questions that the fairies were throwing at him, but that proved pointless as he realized that not even the person who had asked the question was listening to his attempted answer.

So now he was sitting on his throne with Lucy, again, in his lap and Asuka in her lap. Natsu- who had taken his six foot tail, and wrapped it once around Lucy's waist, taking the remaining length to hold Asuka around her waist- and his future queen watched the energy of the room rise making it seem as though this would never end.

Eventually the situation had escalated into an all out fight, Fairy-Tail style. Once this had happened Natsu and Lucy exchanged glances as Asuka cheered on the participants, the demon king sighed, no matter how much he wanted to join the festivities, this wasn't the time for it. Releasing his fiancé and the little girl from his tails grip, he stood up causing Lucy to stand as well, still holding Fairy-Tail's youngest member. He then walked towards the crowd, stopping just inside the alcove where his throne was located.

"Alright everyone, can we continue now?" He shouted over the roar of the crowd.

"SHUT UP SALAMANDER! CAN'T YOU SEE WE'R BUSY HERE?" Gajeel shouted back.

A tick mark appeared on Natsu's head and his eye twitched, he hadn't really expected that to work, they were Fairy-Tail mages after all, but he also didn't think that he would get that response, evidently, once they found out that E.N.D. was Natsu, they had lost all respect for the demon king.

Said immortal looked back at his celestial partner, raising an eyebrow. She simply shrugged, silently stating that this was his problem, and she thought that he should handle it how he saw fit. The fire devil nodded and turned back to face the bickering mages and raised his right hand to his head level.

"FIRE DEVIL CHAINS!"

Instantly, chains appeared in a fire around each chair that the Natsu had made earlier and flew to the person for whom that chair was originally made, wrapping themselves around the mages ankles and wrists. After this was done, the demon king clenched his raised fist, and the fairies were all brought back to their respective chairs, with varying degrees of force, Wendy for example, who was still in her chair from earlier, was simply restrained by the chains, rather gently one might add, for she could easily slip her hands out of them should she want to.

Most of the other mages were brought gently, but firmly, to their chairs. However, virtually all the girls, Levy, Erza, Mira, Lisanna, Cana, and even Juvia, had to be forcefully separated, as they were all arguing over who would be maid of honor at the wedding (causing Natsu to marvel at their ability to overcome the gravity of the situation, and move on to something that could obviously wait until later.) and brought rather harshly to their seats. Once there, those who were still yelling their arguments were gagged by another chain that appeared for just such an emergency.

Gray, who had lost his shirt at some point during Fairy-Tail's fight, was plopped into his chair while two more chains retrieved his missing shirt and roughly forced it on him.

No one, however, was set down as hard as Gajeel. He was slammed into his seat with enough force to make it clang under his iron skin, once he was there, chains continued to wrap around him until he looked like a mummy that had joined a heavy metal band, not even his eyes were visible.

"NOW! Can I continue?"

He took the silence that followed, mostly due to the gags that were placed throughout the group, as a yes.

"Thank you. Now that I have told you my story, are there any questions?"

As he said this he waved his hand, causing the chains on everyone's right hand, except Gajeel's, to disappear.

Everyone raised their hand. Natsu sighed.

"Any questions that are not about mine and Lucy's relationship."

About a third of he hands went down only for them to rise back up again.

"Or upcoming wedding?"

At this, almost all of the hands went down, causing Natsu to sigh in relief and point at Gray and remove his gag. Gray cleared his throat and spoke.

"If the actions of Tartaros caused the seal on your memories to break, how come you didn't remember anything on Tenrou Island when you saw Zeref?"

Natsu again sighed in relief that Gray had asked a serious question. He then pointed to his neck.

"My scarf, it was a gift from Igneel, and it helped to maintain the seal on not only my memories, but my powers as well. So when I saw Zeref, the seal started to break, but the scarf held it together. Earlier when I was captured by Tartaros they took my scarf.

"Speaking of which, where is that thing? I still need it."

"Happy is looking for it in the treasure chamber." Lucy said while shifting Asuka to her other hip.

"Ah, well did he hear my story?"

"Yes, he just wanted to give you back your scarf, it's been bothering him ever since you found us earlier."

Natsu nodded, making sure to remind himself to thank Happy the next time that they saw each other.

The sound of someone clearing their throat through a gag brought Natsu out of his current train of thought. Looking up he saw that Fairy-Tail's 6th master was raising his hand. The demon king pointed to Makarov to remove the gag and let him speak.

"You said earlier that your wings were a new feature. Why is it that you have them now when you didn't before?"

Natsu thought for a moment before answering, "I don't know. My best guess is that I now have dragon powers as well as demon powers, so when the transformation happened I mixed the two forms." his Eyes suddenly widened, "I wonder if that means that I can turn into a full sized dragon. That would be AWESOME" 

His sudden outcry caused the members of Fairy-Tail to sweat drop.

"But," he said, instantly regaining his composure, and causing the fairies to sweat drop even further, "that will just have to wait for another time."

Lucy cleared her throat, causing Natsu to turn towards her.

"When you were getting Mard Geer to let you read the book, you said that you could read Ancient Draconian, and you said that only Wendy or Gajeel might be able to read it, first I want to know if they can," She said this with a look towards their audience, specifically Wendy, who nodded.

"Yes, Grandeeney taught me a little, but she disappeared before we got too far."

Despite the fact that only Lucy and Natsu knew why this was important, everyone's gaze shifted to Gajeel, who was still wrapped up like a Mummy. Sensing everyone's eyes, the iron dragon slayer spoke up, or rather tried to speak up, as Natsu hadn't released him form his prison.

"Mmmhmh hmmhmm mm hhmhm. MHHMHMMMHH!" was all that could be heard form Gajeel, and although nobody in the audience understood him, Natsu translated.

"He says that Metalicana taught him pretty much everything that he needed to know. And no Metal Face, I'm not letting you out of there just yet."

Everyone sweat dropped at the scene before them, but felt it best not to comment on it.

"Anyways," Lucy said, regaining the spotlight, "I also want to know why you didn't include Sting and Rouge on that list of people who could read it."

The demon king put one hand to his chin as he thought about the question, then he blushed slightly in embarrassment and muttered under his breath.

"I guess that the author just forgot about them…"

"What?"

"Ahh, I guess that I just forgot about them in that moment. I did have a few things on my mind."

"I'm sure they would love to hear about how easy they are to forget."

"If they ever complain about it, without anyone telling them, I'll apologize."

Lucy nodded, appearing satisfied. Then spoke again.

"One more thing, what's the difference between the punishment you gave the demons just now, and the one where you force their gates to close?"

Absolutely none of the Fairy-Tail mages understood this question, but Natsu decided that he would give them all the details about it later, and for now answered Lucy.

"Just now I sent them to the place where my gate is named for, forcing their gate though sends them to the netherworld, a place between life and death. No where near as painful, but still really damn boring."

"Now," the pink (salmon) haired devil said, turning back to Fairy-Tail, "any more questions?"

After a few moments of stillness, Mirajane raised her hand, causing Natsu to shudder.

"Anyone besides Mirajane?"

at the crowd's continued continued immobility, Natsu sighed in defeat, and waved his hand to remove all of the gags (though he kept everyone restrained) so that Mira could speak, but he already knew what she was going to ask.

"When is the wedding?"

Natsu again sighed as Lucy stepped up beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, they each knew that it was going to be a long day yet.

It had indeed been a long day after even that point. With Mirajane and the rest of Fairy-Tail's girls asking every possible question about the date, theme, location, colors, and quite a few other things that Natsu hadn't even considered relevant, for the wedding. Lucy, who Natsu wisely deferred to for these type of inquiries, answered all of them with a simple "We haven't decided yet." Which was answer enough for the boys, most of them anyways, but caused all of the women to riot and throw suggestions all at once.

When Natsu, with the help of Master Makarov, had finally regained control over the situation it was already past midnight and Asuka had fallen asleep in Lucy's arms long ago, Natsu suggested that the rest of Fairy-Tail follow her example. They did, everyone laying down where they were after Natsu removed all of the chains, except for the ones on Gajeel, evidently the demon king could really hold a grudge. Gajeel didn't mind at the moment though, through some miracle he had succumbed to sleep himself during the mad rush to ask questions about the wedding.

The next week was spent resting and recovering from the battle, though Makarov did send the Strauss siblings to inform the town that the battle was indeed over, as well as the danger from Tartaros. The people had responded with sighs of relief and cries of joy while asking for details. Natsu and Makarov had decided that the town wasn't ready for the truth yet so the story was soon spread about how the dark guild was defeated and how Fairy-Tail was using their former stronghold as a base until they could rebuild their own guildhall.

While most of the members of Fairy-Tail did indeed rest, as well as the members of Tartaros who just appeared in front of Natsu once their punishment was over. Natsu, however, spent most of his time in the library, while Happy continued to scour the fortress for his scarf, the demon king would pour over the books. This got the attention of every member of Fairy-Tail, specifically his blonde lover, on the third day of his reading, she asked him once what he was up to.

"Natsu what are you looking for?"

"I'm looking for a form of transformation spell that will let me change the Demon Gates into something that at least looks human, I want them to help us rebuild the town, and the people don't need to be afraid of being killed while doing it."

"Well what about you? Don't you need a transformation spell to use on yourself? I mean you can't walk around Magnolia with claws, talons, horns, wings and devil markings can you?"

As if on cue, Happy came flying into the library where the couple was talking.

"I found it! I found it!"

Lucy looked up to see the blue exceed carrying Natsu's scaly scarf in his paws, the sight of which got Natsu very excited.

"Perfect timing Happy."

Happy landed on Natsu's head, carful to avoid the horns, breathing a sigh of relief.

"I'm so hungry I could eat a whole cartload of fish. I haven't eaten since I started the search."

Natsu took the winged cat of his head and looked at him worriedly.

"Are you gonna be okay little buddy? Do you need something to drink or anything else besides fish?"

"I'll be fine as long as I get some food… and a nice long nap."

Natsu, while still holding Happy, walked out of the book room and into the hall with Lucy trailing behind with a look of concern on her face. Once they were in the hall the demon king looked at his friend and smiled.

"Salt water, or fresh water fish?"

Happy tilted his head in confusion before he answered.

"Salt water would be great."

Natsu grinned and handed Happy to Lucy, then turned back down the hall and slammed his hands together, open handed with his palms up, fingers open perpendicular to his palms also pointed up.

"OPEN! GATE OF HELL!"

Said gate appeared out of a massive, if brief, fire. The gate then opened up and water poured forth from it, splashing everyone present, and partially flooding the hall. Shortly after the gate closed and disappeared again, leaving a very wet hall, and half a school of fish, so rudely plucked from their home. The greatest prize however, was the massive swordfish that had evidently been hunting them, and was now lying on the floor as well, waiting for a very hungry cat to come out of his state of shock.

Happy's jaw, which had hit the floor, suddenly snapped shut for a second before he let out a cry of victory, and leapt, out of Lucy's arms leaving Natsu's scarf behind, for his prey, eating as many fish as he could.

Natsu and Lucy burst out into laughter as he ate the first two fish in one bite each. The celestial mage's laugh was short lived however as she looked down at her clothes.

"Natsu, now I'm soaking wet."

Said demon king only laughed harder at her scolding and pulled her into a hug, wrapping his tail and wings around her for good measure. While they stood there he increased his body heat so that she would dry off faster.

"Don't worry about it Luce, I'll take care of that," he said before leaning in to give her a quick kiss, which she happily returned.

After they broke the kiss she handed him the scarf.

"So why did you need this?"

He grinned as he took it from her, simply responding with, "You'll see," before putting it on.

The wings on his back shrank, and disappeared while his feet and hands returned to normal as well and the demon marks receded. Once all the changes were complete, he stood before her looking completely normal, well, aside from his tail, and one demon mark remained, it was on his right shoulder, inside his guild mark, it was the guild mark of the dark guild Tartaros looking as if it had been branded there.

Lucy looked at it with concern before glancing back to Natsu, her expression begging for an explanation.

"I'm the master of the Tartaros guild, of course I have the guild-mark, but I am also a Fairy-Tail member, so I still have that guild-mark too."

"Ok. Why do you still have a tail?"

"It was either keep the tail or the wings, this scarf can help seal my powers, but now that the main seal is broken it can't do everything, so I decided to keep the tail. I actually missed this thing, it's like having another hand," as he said this he grabbed his queen around the waist with his tail and pulled her towards him, causing her to blush, "besides, I don't think I will ever get tired of holding you like this."

Fairy-Tail began rebuilding the town a few days later, with the surprisingly compliant help of the Tartaros demons, according to Natsu, "They attacked it, so they can fix it." Starting with the guildhall, since that was completely gone, they got to work, each helping in their own way. Kyôka, who Natsu had disguised as a woman with _normal_ feet and hands, had discarded her helmet-revealing that she had short green hair- was using her strength and ability to fly to lift loads of tools and lumber to the necessary locations.

Natsu watched her help out with relief. When he had first ordered his followers to help with the reconstruction they all were begrudgingly obedient, none more so than Jackal, who Natsu expected to have troubles with later. Kyôka had been one of those most willing to obey his orders when it came to the town, but he argued for a freaking _hour_ with her to get her to wear actual pants while she worked, he didn't understand it at all, she was like a teenage girl yelling at her dad about fashion, which Natsu was neither expecting or prepared for, at the end of the fight, which ended in his victory, he was really surprised at how seriously he was considering forcefully closing her gate and sending her to the netherworld.

When he had told all this to Lucy, she laughed uncontrollably for almost ten minutes, he didn't think it was that funny.

"I'm still wondering about her thoughts. I mean, I tell her to help the people that she considered her enemies, and still thinks are lower than insects, fine. But I tell her to put on some goddamn pants, and it's the end of the world."

Which simply caused Lucy to laugh harder.

Things went well for about a week, before Jackal seemed to have had enough.

One evening, after the Fairy-Tail guildhall had been restored, and the only ones at the Tartaros fortress were the Demon Gates, their king, and his future queen, (for by this point, what was left of the rune knights had already come to deal with the human members of the dark guild, and sabertooth had reclaimed Minerva, who was now in counseling, while demons were still suffering their punishment.) Jackal lost it.

Standing up quite suddenly, and throwing the table he was sitting at across the room so that it would splinter to pieces, he shouted his discontent, and unwanted opinion.

"Why are we helping these weaklings rebuild their pathetic homes? We should be looking for Lord Zeref so that we can complete our mission!"

E.N.D., who was sitting on his throne talking to his fiancée, turned towards the disguised demon and raised an eyebrow. He had ordered them to stay in their human forms 24/7 in order to allow them to become accustomed to the shape of their bodies, for some this was really no different, Jackal for example simply lost his pointed ears and teeth, Franmalth on the other hand, had become a man of almost six feet with green hair and only a left eye, the other hidden by an eyepatch.

Natsu listened to Jackal rant for a moment, about how the strength of the demons was being wasted, before becoming tired. He stood from his throne, motioning for Lucy to stay where she was, and addressed the arrogant demon.

"We are helping to undo the damage that you have brought, our strength isn't wasted here, we are simply helping those around us so that they can make themselves strong."

"Which is a waste of time! We must return to Lord Zeref as soon as possible!"

"Then you shouldn't have made such a huge mess to clean up!"

All the demons, aside from Jackal, cringed at his words.

"Moan and complain all you want, but we are still here because you destroyed a town, and we will right that wrong before we leave."

"I think that you just went soft while you were away, and you don't know how to…

"I have not grown soft by any means, nor have I grown weak, if that is what you were going to say next."

"Than prove it!"

Jackal's challenge was met with silence throughout the room, even he looked shocked by what he had just said. The demon king raised one eyebrow.

"Didn't I do that when I fought you at that councilman's village? I defeated you while only using a 5th of my magic power, then if you add my curse power as well…"

"Then you have forgotten what your purpose is! If you really kne…"

"Jackal that's enough! I have just decided to send you to the netherworld the hard way."

The demons in the room stiffened at their king's statement, but didn't try to beg for mercy on their comrade's part, they knew that this punishment, like the banishment to Hell, was not one that E.N.D. handed out lightly. Those two extremes were reserved for putting one in their place, or making sure that they understood the severity of their actions. They were both judgments that the demon king hated to pass.

To send one to the netherworld the hard way was to destroy their body in combat, single combat, against Master E.N.D. himself. It was they best way to show the Demon Gates why he was their leader.

"Do you want me to crush you without using my powers, or without moving a muscle?"

At Jackal's silence the demon king made the decision for him.

"Fine, I will start with muscle, and finish with power." Turning to the other demons present, he said, "Please make sure to contain our fight."

They nodded and took up positions around the room, so that they were standing a rough square around their comrade, and their king. All except Silver, who looked as confused as Lucy felt, but she supposed that made sense seeing as he wasn't originally a demon.

In the two weeks that had passed Silver's identity as Gray's father, and history as a human who was resurrected through Keyes power, had come to light. While most of the Fairy-Tail found this either disturbing or amazing, Gray had responded by punching his father in the gut, then wrapping him in a fierce hug, the punch was for what he did at the giants village, while the reason for the hug was pretty obvious, the Fairies still sweat-dropped at this though.

Lucy's reminiscing was cut short as Jackal released a battle cry and charged at Natsu. He struck the demon king in the chest with both hands, his fingers laced together making it appear that he had two arms leading to one massive fist.

Natsu didn't even cringe.

Jackal followed up with many kicks, punches, slashes, and various other strikes, but he still never earned a reaction from his king. After a minute or two of striking, the yellow haired demon leapt back.

He let out a roar while thrusting his fist towards Natsu.

E.N.D. began to glow everywhere that he had been touched by Jackal, and Lucy knew what was about to happen. Placing her hands over her ears, the future queen turned her back to the bright flash and deafening explosion that rocked the room. When she looked back she saw that all of the Demon Gates who were standing around the battle using their various abilities to contain the blast, Ezel and Kyôka were slashing the air, forcing the flames back, Mard Geer made a wall of thorns, and Franmalth simply absorbed the curse's soul.

When the smoke cleared, and it was reveal that Natsu hadn't moved at all, Jackal yelled and repeated the process, three more times. While he was doing this Lucy got a good look at his eyes, and was surprised to find that they held no anger, malice, or arrogance, only desperation, and fear.

After the fourth and final massive explosion Jackal was breathing heavily, sweat dripping off his body. When the smoke cleared his eyes widened in horror, because Natsu was no longer there, you could see the unmarked spots on the floor where his feet had been, but he was gone. Well that's not quit true, he was actually standing right behind Jackal, his back to the Demon Gate, his thumbs stuck in his pockets.

Sensing his presence Jackal turned in what felt like slow-motion to face his king as he leapt back, and away from his master, before he got halfway through his jump though, Natsu's tail wrapped around his throat and tossed him to the ground hard enough to crack the stone, and send him bouncing away.

While Jackal was still in motion, Natsu leapt high into the air and landed a foot or two from where Jackal came to a stop, at about the same time that Jackal did so.

Using his tail again, the demon king tried to grab Jackal around his neck a second time, but the explosion specialist saw it coming and grabbed the tail with both hands. This turned out to be no help at all though, as the master of Tartaros simply captured his hands instead and raised his tail up so that Jackal was dangling in the air, his feet several inches off the ground. The fire dragon slayer then proceeded to whip him around like he was little more than a rag-doll, slamming his head, torso, and legs into the ground with a strength that you wouldn't expect the sleek tail of possessing.

All of this was done without Natsu so much as removing his hands from his pockets, or even looking at Jackal, instead the demon king focused on some undetermined point directly in front of him.

Eventually, Natsu released his hold, tossing Jackal across the makeshift ring while exclaiming, "The time for muscle is over."

When Jackal came to a stop, Lucy could see that he had somehow become even more horrified. Bringing his hand off the ground where it was supporting his weight, he clenched his fist and growled.

Natsu's tail began to glow, signaling the demons signature attack, this time however, when the explosion occurred, the demon king's entire body erupted into flames. This was a common practice for Natsu, so at first Lucy was somewhat unimpressed with the feat, however, that changed when she realized that he hadn't lit himself on fire, but instead had become a tower of flame.

In the same way that Rouge melted into shadow, Natsu had burst into a blaze of light. The fire held the demon king's basic shape, and you could just see his face through the flames, but any other details were lost in the brightness of the inferno.

Lucy's jaw dropped at the sight, as Natsu's form split into smaller fires that began to zip around the throne-room, while Jackal tried to follow each of the beacons of light in a feeble attempt to target one. His efforts ended in failure though, as one of the flames came to a halt just over his head and began to reform into a muscular arm that ended in a clawed hand, while the rest of the flames which were dancing across the room began to gather as well.

Before the demon master had finished reforming, he had placed his hand on the head of his yellow haired subject. When he was whole again he had regained his demon form, which he had refrained from doing these past few weeks, as he was constantly wearing his scarf. In fact Lucy thought that he was wearing it at the beginning of the fight, so she had no idea how it ended up around her neck.

Once Natsu had placed his hand on Jackal's head, the demon froze. Then, slowly, the master of Tartaros turned his servants head so that he was looking the demon king who was standing just behind him, before said king began to speak.

"Most people respect those in authority over them because they are wiser, or older, or they were just placed there to keep things in order, or they have a lot of spirit, or loyalty. But you are a demon, all of the Gates are, so you respect strength before anything else, you don't care about age, wisdom, spirit, or loyalty. So long as your leader is strong, you don't give a damn. But I am also human, so I do respect that list of traits, I don't claim to have all of them, but I want to, and I want you to respect them too, I want to change the way you think, and to do that, we need to start changing the way you do things, and hopefully your minds will follow.

"But until that day, I'll humor you with my strength, I just showed you why you follow me, and the rest of this demonstration should show you that I'm not soft. So I don't want any more rebellious questions, do you understand?"

Jackal sneered as he simply answered, "Understood, master." Being sure to drag out that last word as though it were an insult.

The demon king nodded and removed his hand from Jackal's head, brought it to his own face clenched in a fist. As he turned and walked away from his explosion specialist, he spoke again.

"Your power can be activated by touch," Jackal's eyes widened in horror as his master continued, "well, mine can also do that." E.N.D sighed before he continued, "Ashes to ashes, and all that rot." As he spoke he relaxed his clenched fist, bringing it back to his side, and Jackal's body collapsed, a pile of ash where his head belonged.

"Leave us." E.N.D. commanded his followers, as he came to stand beside Lucy, his back to the remaining Gates, who all silently filed out of the double doors across from the throne, as the body of Jackal turned into pure energy that quickly dissipated, making it as though it were never there.

Once the stone slabs had clicked shut, Natsu lost his resolve. He turned, wrapped Lucy in a hug, and quietly cried into her shoulder, being carful, so as not to harm her with his horns.

Lucy simply returned the hug, patting him on his back. She knew he hated to do that, he hated having to punish anyone, and the demons, since they were so tough and hard-headed, always needed some infliction that would be considered extreme by anyone else's standards. But they needed to be kept in line, and he was their king, so that duty fell to him.

"I might be their master," Natsu said, "and they can be hard to deal with at times, but I think of them as my brothers and sisters," Lucy continued trying to comfort him, though she could feel her own eyes begin to water, as she started to hurt at the sight of Natsu's pain, "it's almost like if you had to choose Levy's, or Erza's punishment."

Lucy refused to let him say anything else that would bring her so much pain just to think about, so before he could say any thing at all, she grabbed his face with her hands and, after removing it from her shoulder, kissed him softly on the lips. It only took him a few seconds to return it, just as gently.

They broke apart after a moment, and she took his scarf and wrapped it back around his neck, effectively removing most of his demon features, aside from his tail of course, which was still wrapped around her waist. Lucy then pulled his head down to hers until their foreheads touched. As they rested in that position, he spoke again.

"How long will it take before they change? How much longer will I have to do things like that?"

"I don't know. They've been like this for so long though, you can't expect them to change in a week or two, it's going to take some time. But don't worry, I'll be here with you throughout it all."

Natsu sighed, closing his eyes before he spoke again.

"Thank you. I think that we shouldn't stay in the fortress any more, they don't need to be reminded about my choices t all times do they?"

"You just want to get me alone."

Natsu chuckled sightly, "I have you alone right now."

Lucy's face reddened at his words, and she tried to push him away, but to no avail.

Natsu donned a serious expression, "Really Luce, I spend all day watching them, dealing with them, if my being here is going to trigger another scene like the one tonight, I don't need to spend my nights here."

Lucy nodded, conceding the point.

"Well my apartment was finished being rebuilt yesterday, you, me, and, Happy could stay there."

"Thank you Luce. Come on, let's go to the guild and pick up Happy."

He started walking towards the door, but stopped when Lucy didn't move. Looking back, he saw that the celestial mage had raised an eyebrow, and was staring at him.

"What?" the demon king asked.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Natsu made a very un-kingly like sound that was a cross between a groan and a whine.

He had indeed known that his tail was still wrapped around Lucy's waist, and in fact, was hoping that she wouldn't notice.

"Do I have to?" the dragon slayer asked pouting, doing his best to give Lucy some form puppy dog eyes.

Lucy wouldn't give in on this subject though, no matter how cute Natsu made himself.

"Yes. Now come on, the townspeople can't see you with a tail. They're already having a hard time trusting you with that guildmark on your arm." She said, gesturing to the Tartaros mark that was still inside his Fairy-Tail mark.

When the reconstruction had first started, Natsu had taken to wearing sleeves, for the first time in his life it felt like. After the first week however, three people had caught a glimpse of the Tartaros guildmark on his arm, which obviously meant that eight days after they started rebuilding the town, everyone knew that it was there.

Natsu went back to his normal outfit after that.

He had brushed off the new design on his shoulder by saying that, since he had beat two members of the dark guild, including the stand in master, he had declared himself its new king, and had simply wanted to make sure everyone knew of his accomplishment. They had bought his story for the most part, but most of the townspeople were still wary of him, causing everyone in the guild to decide against telling them about his new tail just yet.

"Please Natsu."

"Oh fine," he said pulling Lucy closer to him, and throwing an arm over her shoulder before removing his tail from her waist, and pulling it into his pants, wrapping it around his leg loosely, "But when we get back to the guild I'm letting it back out, my pants weren't made to have a tail in them, and it's very uncomfortable."

Lucy sighed in relief, ignoring the infinite amount of jokes that leapt to the front of her mind at the way he said that.

"Fine." She said, leaning into his chest as they started walking towards the door.

"WHAT'D YOU SAY ICE PRINCESS?!"

"YOU HEARD ME FLAME BRAIN!"

"I thought you had to see the master…"

That last bit was spoken by a Lucy who was sweat-dropping at the scene before her.

It had been two weeks since Jackal's punishment, and since then, Natsu hadn't spent one night at the fortress, instead, as promised, he and Happy had stayed at Lucy's apartment, and Natsu spent the nights sleeping with Lucy in his arms, and Happy curled up at their feet.

And yes, they were in fact sleeping, Lucy was rather traditional in this way, and although they were already married in Natsu's opinion, he was not willing to risk banishment to the couch.

""NATSU! GRAY! STOP FIGHTING BEFORE YOU DESTROY THE GUILDHALL!" Erza yelled as she appeared behind the two mages, who were standing forehead to forehead glaring at each other. Before said knuckleheads had a chance to react, the Titania slammed her fists onto their heads. This had the desired effect of stopping the fight, but it didn't look quite the same as it used to.

Instead of both male mages lying on the ground, steam rising off the bumps that seemed to magically appear on their heads, and swirls where their eyes usually went, only Gray ended up like this, Natsu stood tall, looking down on the ice make mage. He turned to Erza, who was holding her right hand, the one that she had hit Natsu with. The fire dragon slayer smirked before turning back to Gray, intending to make a smart remark about his position.

Before he could do that though, Lucy, who'd had enough of this, called out to him.

"Natsu! I thought you came here to see the master, not fight with Gray. Go see him now so we can go home, it's late and I'm tired."

Said dragon slayer turned toward his fiancée, and seeing her expression, decided it was best to do as she said. Some guys would say that he was afraid, others would say he was whipped, absolutely none of the boys who would say that had ever shared the bed with an angry woman, well, technically neither had he, since every time Lucy went to bed angry, something that happened far too often for his liking, he was banished to the couch. He never stayed there long though, as soon as she was asleep, Natsu would sneak back into the bed, and wrap his arms, and tail around her.

She would always wake up his arms wondering why she was mad at him the night before.

After Natsu entered Makarov's office he started to rub his head. He may be a lot stronger now, but Erza still hit _really_ hard.

He heard a chuckle from behind the desk.

"Erza's quite the girl isn't she?" Makarov said, looking up from the mountain of paperwork.

"Yeah, she's almost a demon herself."

"I'm going to tell her you said that."

"I said 'almost', and besides, from me, that's a compliment."

The 6th master of Fairy-Tail merely chuckled some more.

"So what do you need from me my good sir?"

Natsu raised an eyebrow before responding, "'Good sir'? Since when have you called me that?"

"Well, considering you're about 400 years old, I figured that 'my boy' didn't quite fit."

Natsu rolled his eyes.

"And those years of experience taught how to pick a woman, Lucy is a fine examp…"

Makarov was interrupted by a set of knuckles that were suddenly grinding into the top of his skull.

"Don't talk about my fiancée like that _boy._ "

"Alright alright ALRIGHT! Sheesh was that really necessary?"

"Yes."

Makarov growled in response and there was a moment of silence before the demon king spoke up.

"I need to take them and leave."

"What?"

"The demon gates, I need to take them and leave as soon as Magnolia is finished. They need some isolation as they rethink their lives."

"You want them to like people more, so you're taking them away from all possible human contact. How does that make sense?"

"Don't people leave on long journeys and return enlightened? Isn't that how it works?"

"That's for people who want to 'find themselves', they leave behind all forms of distractions so that they can focus on who they are, what they want to do with their life, etcetera. That reason is nothing but bull, you didn't even sound convinced. So my question still stands. How does removing them from what they need to learn to accept, appreciate, and love, help them to do so?"

"…It doesn't."

"Good, now that you acknowledge that, what are we going to do? We need to…"

"But it helps me to make sure that no one gets hurt by them either." Natsu said, as though Makarov hadn't started speaking.

The 6th master's expression softened a little as he realized where the fire dragon slayer was coming from, and he remained silent as the pink (salmon) haired man continued.

"I can't do this, keeping up with them 24/7, even though they respect me like their king, they literally don't care for human lives, if they're careless for a moment, how many people are they putting in danger? Most of them are strong enough to kill someone if they sneeze wrong. I know that they'll follow my orders, and some are even beginning to act differently towards people on their own, but then I see Jackal, and he's almost trying to cause trouble. He might be obedient, but only barely, I fully expect him to rebel at some point. So I'm going to take them away and work with them slowly, when I feel comfortable with it, I will let them back one at a time, we'll leave Silver here since he's already human, and he will be our liaison, besides, I heard he's been teaching Gray devil slayer magic."

Makarov nodded, Silver had indeed been teaching Gray a new style of magic, and while he was making good progress, they were still just at the beginning of training, and never had much time to do so. The ice make mage would need his father's guidance for the path ahead.

"With all those reasons, perhaps you're right to work like that, but letting them back one at a time, this could take years Natsu."

"I know, and I'm ready for that, so is Luce."

"You two just became a couple last month, are you really ready to be separated like this?"

Natsu blinked a few times, with a confused expression on his face. His eyes suddenly widened in understanding. He shook his head and spoke.

"No, no, no. What I meant was, she's coming with me. We definitely aren't ready to be torn apart for years."

"No."

Natsu's eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean 'no'?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. You said that you were worried about the Demon Gates hurting people, yet you want to take Lucy with you as you reteach them everything? Besides, you can't just take Lucy away like that."

Natsu was about to respond, but then his head snapped towards the door of the office, which burst open a second or two later to reveal a rather pissed looking celestial mage. Lucy walked into the room, closing the door behind her.

"He's not 'just taking me away like that', I'm going with him of my own free will. He's my fiancé, and by that point he'll be my husband. Besides, how can he change their attitude towards humans if there are absolutely none around?"

Makarov had only just recovered from Lucy's surprise entrance as he started to reply.

"So you _want_ to go with him as he trains them? You really think you can take the risk?"

"I'm a big girl, and I'll have Natsu with me," as she said this, Natsu wrapped his tail around her waist, and she leaned into him, "we know what we're doing gramps."

The 6th master stared at the two before him, they were so determined that it was contagious, but he still felt doubts, and if he was completely honest, he didn't want to deal with the crying that was bound to erupt from certain fairies once they left. Natsu recognized his indecisive look, and made one last point.

"We're not asking your permission gramps, we're just telling whats happening. And while I want to leave Fairy-Tail on good terms, if I have to fight you to take Luce with me, I will," that got the old (compared to Lucy) man's attention, his head snapped up to look at Natsu as he continued, "I need her Makarov, if I spend all my time with Geer, Jackal, and the rest, I'll go crazy, and a crazy immortal is never a good thing."

Makarov conceded the point. He sighed, and then spoke.

"I understand, but know that we'll miss you when you're gone, some of the members might flood the town with their tears when Lucy leaves."

"Oh I see how it is, I suppose they'll all dance for joy when they realize that I'm gone too." Said a rather irked fire dragon slayer.

Lucy giggled while Fairy-Tail's master chuckled at the demon king's very un-kingly pout.

Then Makarov remembered something that Lucy said when she first walked in.

"'By then he'll be your husband'? Does this mean that you two have a date set?"

The couple nodded as Lucy began to explain.

"As soon as Cardia Cathedral is finished with repairs. We thought that it would help the morale of the townspeople to celebrate a wedding, also we don't want to wait."

"Have you told Mira yet? I'm sure she will help you with the preparation."

The door again burst open as the aforementioned take-over mage flew into the room, tackling Lucy, and therefore Natsu who still had his tail around his fiancée's waist, in a rather rough hug.

"Of course I will! I'm so excited that we finally have a date, the cathedral should be done next month if everything goes well! I can't wait! Oh Lucy, you'll need to get your dress, pick out colors, flowers, menu for the reception…"

Mirajane went on and on with a list of details that just gave Natsu a headache. Meanwhile Lucy did her best to both answer her questions, and not pass out from Mira's death grip of a hug. She failed at the second endeavor after a few minutes, causing Natsu to scold the white haired woman, before gathering Lucy up in his arms, bidding everyone goodnight, he carried Lucy home while Happy flew above them.

When they got home, Natsu tried to wake Lucy up so she could change for bed, however the blonde stubbornly remained asleep, leaving Natsu with a difficult decision, should _he_ get her dressed for bed, and face her wrath in the morning, or leave her in what she was wearing, which meant that she would be sore tomorrow when she woke up.

Sighing, he set to work, grabbing her pjs out of her drawer, he began to undress her, ignoring a certain blue cat's comments about how perverted he was. At least he wasn't taking her underwear off, and let's be honest, her bra was far more modest than some of those swimsuits she wore. After he had her sufficiently covered by her sleeping clothes, he reached under her shirt, blushing like mad the entire time, he undid her bra after what felt like an eternity of trying, and slipped it out of her shirt. He saw nothing, but he knew that she wouldn't believe him when she first woke up, at least she wouldn't be uncomfortable while she slept.

Sighing yet again, he placed her in the bed, then crawled in after her, and wrapped her in a hug like he normally would, while Happy turned out the light and followed their example. Natsu relaxed as best as he could, while mentally preparing himself for the slap that would most likely wake him up in the morning.

The wedding that was held the next month was a simple, if elegant, affair.

The repaired cathedral was scrubbed till it shone, roses decorated the walls and aisles.

But no one was looking at the decorations, they were all looking at the front of the church, where Natsu stood in front of Fairy-Tail's master, who was preforming the ceremony. They were all excited that this day had come, everyone patiently waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle.

In the back of the church however, said bride was beside herself with worry.

They had forgotten something vital.

It wasn't the dress, or tuxedo, she and Natsu were wearing the ones that they had showcased at the Grand Magic Games.

It wasn't the flower girls or ring bearer, Asuka Wendy and Romeo filled those places, despite the young fire mage's insistence that he was too old for this part.

It wasn't the best man or maid of honor, they were Gray and Juvia. Lucy's choice for maid of honor nearly caused a small war among the women of the guild, but when Natsu chose Gray as his best man, Lucy went with the obvious woman to match him.

It wasn't the rest of the bridesmaids or groomsmen, in order the bridesmaids were Levy, Erza, Mirajane, and Lisanna, while the groomsmen were Gajeel, Jellal (who was disguised as Mystogan, he had surprised everyone when he showed up for rehearsal.), Laxus, and Bickslow.

Natsu had only chosen those last two because Lucy wanted him to have the same number of groomsmen as she did bridesmaids, and so, suggested them.

He was really surprised when they accepted.

It wasn't the guests, all of their friends from other guilds had been able to make it, including all of Lucy's spirits, Sting, Yukino, Rouge, and Minerva, who was making a good recovery last Lucy had heard. And then the whole town of Magnolia had shown up as well, those who didn't have a seat were standing against the walls.

It wasn't the music, Lyra was leading that department, the food, Yajima had it covered, or the decorations, Mira had already done a fantastic job.

So what was missing?

"Who's going to walk me down the aisle?!" cried out a certain celestial bride in despair.

It was far too late to be asking this question, the rest of the procession had already left, and for some reason she only just now realized that that her right arm wasn't wrapped around anyone else's.

She felt like an idiot. She felt the need to face-palm, postpone the wedding, and murder Mirajane, all at the same time. How had _she_ forgotten this very important detail? Who had walked Lucy during the rehearsal?... no one. Mira said they weren't there that night. Well they didn't appear to be here now either.

All that took some time to say, but when people panic their minds work faster, and considering that Lucy's mind worked rather quickly to begin with, and how much she was panicking, all of those thoughts passed through her mind in the span of 2 seconds.

Before the third second passed, Lucy heard a voice that calmed her down instantly, a voice that she never expected to hear again.

"I believe that's my job."

Lucy looked up, and standing there, in a black suit with a crimson tie, was Jude Heartfilia.

"Dad..?" Lucy's voice was barely above a whisper, Jude simply nodded, stepping forward to embrace his daughter,

"You look beautiful Lucy."

"How…"

"That would be my doing."

Lucy looked to see Keyes standing off the the side in his disguise, which made him look like a tall, black haired, pale man who looked almost sickly thin.

"Master E.N.D. overheard you talking to Miss McGarden, saying how you wished that your parents were here to see this. He asked me if I could arrange that with my necromancy. As you can see, it is quite possible."

"Come on Lucy, we can talk with your mother at the reception."

"Lucy nodded mutely as her father took her arm, and escorted her to the man, who right now, she loved more than anything in the world.

As they entered the main sanctuary, everyone stood, and Lucy could see her mother at the front, tears of joy in her eyes.

When they reached the front, Jude remained at Lucy's side, while Layla walked to her other side.

"Who gives this woman to be wed to this man?" Makarov asked.

Lucy's parents spoke in unison, "We do."

As they released Lucy so that she could stand beside Natsu, the celestial mage realized that she was already crying, if this kept up she wouldn't be able to say her vows.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…"

The wedding ceremony had been beautiful, and the reception was delicious.

But the blonde bride couldn't care less about the food, she was too busy telling her parents about her adventures, the entire time her eyes were flooded with tears, and she had the biggest smile that Natsu had ever seen on her face. While the fire dragon slayer desperately wanted some attention from his wife, he would never do anything to interrupt her time with her parents. So he contented himself with simply sitting beside her, holding her hand, and enjoying that look on her face, memorizing every detail, saving the image forever.

He got up every once in awhile to refill his plate at the buffet, but after about the third trip he started looking agitated, after the sixth trip he looked mad, then while they were sitting at the table, Erza walked up to their table, offering her congratulations.

"I'm very happy for the two of you," Lucy paused her conversation with her parents just long enough to get up and hug the scarlet haired woman, Natsu following suit. When Erza hugged Natsu, Lucy saw her whisper something in his ear, causing the fire dragon slayer to sigh out of exasperation. Both of the female mages looked at him with raised eyebrows, while he held up one finger telling them to wait a moment, he then put his first two fingers to his temple.

" _Hello Fairy-Tail wizards, this is Natsu Dragneel speaking to you. Please try to act normal, not like someone's using telepathy on you, I don't want to ruin anyone's fun, but I have something to tell you all."_

Lucy and Erza exchanged glances while the pink (salmon) haired man continued.

" _I have received some threats that go along these lines, '_ if you dare hurt Lucy, I will destroy you _'. Now I have mixed feelings about these, first off, I am so happy that my wife has friends who are willing to say that, and follow through on it._

 _However, I also find it highly insulting that you think that I_ would _harm her in any way, I love this woman more than life itself, I would never do what you people feel the need to threaten me over._

 _Anyways, no matter how I look at it, I have been approached, and threatened, by Makarov, Gray, Gajeel, on behalf of Levy, Levy herself, and Erza._

 _I. Get. It._

 _Stop interrupting our celebration to say that you'll try to kill me should anything happen to Lucy, it's annoying. Thank you for listening to this message."_

Natsu then sat down and resumed eating like nothing happened. Lucy decided that it was best to follow his example, she agreed with what he said, and thought that he dealt with the issue quite well.

As they sat down and resumed talking to Lucy's parents, they ignored the stares that the whole guild was throwing their way.

The moment that Natsu had been dreading since this morning had come, it was time to say goodbye to Lucy's parents. He knew that it had to be done, but he didn't want to take them away from her again.

It was just after the reception and everyone, aside from the bride, groom, and the bride's family, was busy cleaning up the mess that had resulted. Natsu took his wife and in-laws to the roof for some privacy to explain the situation.

"Lucy, it's time to say goodbye."

The celestial mage took a second to understand what her husband had said, when she did, her eyes widened and she looked back at her mother and father, who were both giving her sad smiles.

"Why? Why do they have to go, but Silver can stay?"

Her voice carried confusion and a little hurt, it made the fire dragon slayer's heart clench, but this had to be done, and this was the best way to do it.

"When Keyes brings people back to life with his powers there are two possible outcomes. Either they will be the same way they were before they died, or they will be empty shells, just bodies that are like puppets. The deciding factor in this, is whether or not the people he brought back have some unfinished business in this world, a mission that they have to complete."

He let his words sink in before continuing.

"Silver's mission is to teach Gray devil slayer magic so that he can protect the ones he loves, something that Silver failed at, in his opinion."

"So when he's done, they'll have to say goodbye as well?" Lucy asked, feeling sorry that she had dragged them into this conversation.

"Yes, and Gray knows this, but it hasn't changed his mind about his training."

Then Layla spoke up.

"We didn't tell you about this because we only had a little time, so if we did, you would be obsessed with it, and then you wouldn't enjoy yourself as much."

Lucy nodded in understanding, they were right of course, she would have spent half of the time looking at the clock. She looked to her father and asked him,

"What was your mission?" she then turned to her mother, tears forming in her eyes, "Why did you need to come back?"

They glanced at each other, right before enveloping her in a fierce, but gentle hug. Speaking in unison, they told her.

"We came back to see your wedding, wish you well on your journey through life, give you the kind of advice that parents give on this day, and to say a proper goodbye."

The tears in Lucy's eyes started to fall down her cheeks, they had seen her wedding, they had given advice at the reception, now all they had left in their mission, was to wish them well and say goodbye. Which could be considered the same thing.

"We didn't get to do so when we left this world last time," Layla said.

"Your mother died while you were asleep, and I died while you were on Tenrou Island."

Lucy barely heard them, she was too busy crying into their shoulders, increasing the strength of her hug as her mother continued.

"When Natsu first brought us back, to tell us about your marriage and to ask for our blessing, we were speechless. We hadn't seen that kind of dedication before."

"We only had one condition, and it was, that we be able to attend the wedding at our rightful places as your mother and father."

"But now, it's time for us to say goodbye," her parents spoke in unison.

They released her from their hug and stepped back. Standing beside each other, they began to glow with a soft golden light as Jude spoke first.

"Goodbye Lucy, we hope that you take all of our words to heart."

"Treasure every day you have with your husband, and your friends. And no matter what, never forget, that whether we are in this world or the next…"

Her parents spoke in unison again, for the last time.

"We love you with all our hearts, and will always be watching over you."

With that said, the glow intensified briefly, blinding Lucy and Natsu momentarily, when the glow was gone, and so were Jude and Layla Heartfilia, as though they were never there to begin with.

Lucy's eyes were still wet, but the tears were no longer streaming down her face, in stead her eyes just glistened in the light of the moon and stars. Natsu walked up to stand behind her, close enough to help her should she need it, but not so close so that he made her feel crowded, while he waited to see what she wanted to do next.

He didn't wait very long. Almost immediately, his wife turned toward him, wrapping him in a hug that he returned gently. She spoke with her head pressed to his chest.

"Thank you Natsu," she said, her voice almost a whisper, "they were right, I didn't get to tell them goodbye last time."

He remained silent, but he nodded slightly, his chin bumping the top of her head lightly.

"And even though it still hurts," Lucy continued, "I don't feel scarred anymore, I feel… at peace."

The fire dragon slayer finally spoke to his wife.

"Anything that can do, and even somethings that I can't, I will do for you Luce."

The celestial mage smiled into her husband's chest before looking up at him, and stretched to kiss him gently.

They broke apart and stood together on the roof awhile after that, relaxing in the starlight, before Natsu picked Lucy up the way a bride should be, and carried her home. There wasn't going to be a honeymoon, they didn't have time for that yet, but they had arranged for Happy to stay with Wendy and Carla, so they would spend their first night together alone.

The day of the wedding was the single greatest day of Natsu's life, until a month later, on the day that they found out that a certain celestial mage was pregnant. But that day was again surpassed 8 short (unless you were Lucy) months later when his wife delivered a very healthy, if two weeks early, baby girl.

Her pregnancy had been rather uneventful, aside from the cravings, mood swings, and general discomfort that came with having a baby grow in your body. Lucy constantly craved spicy foods, which surprised no one, and pickled olives, which was left everyone feeling sick to their stomachs.

Her typically happy optimistic attitude was constantly switching places with either an angry, or depressed one, both of which were quite pessimistic. That really only lasted a week or two, but it was a hectic time nonetheless. Quite entertaining if you weren't Gray or Natsu, as the ice make mage was constantly on the wrong side of her wrath because he had said something stupid, typically something about weight, and the fire dragon slayer spent most of that time on the couch, which was far too small for him.

Lucy's chaotic state of being did not, however, have an effect on the rebuilding of the town. Everything was proceeding as planned, such to the point that when it came time to deliver the pink haired, brown eyed, daughter of the Dragneel's, she was born in the Magnolia General Hospital.

When the celestial mage had gone into labor and been rushed to the hospital, where Porlyusica was acting as the chief of staff for the time being, they had tried to remove Natsu from the room, _tried_ being the key word. Even the almighty Titania Erza had been unable to remove him from the room, and any attempt to negotiate with the dragon slayer was met with him stating that, "As the father of the child, and the husband of the woman, it is both my duty, and my right to be here, so long as I am not having a nervous breakdown of some sort."

Before anyone could try to state otherwise, Lucy let out a loud cry that caused everyone's attention to fly back to her. As the labor went on, Natsu stayed by his wife's side, letting her hold (or crush, depending on the way that you look at it) his hand, and doing the best he could to help her stay calm through the process.

When their daughter had entered the world, Lucy cried for an entirely different reason. As Wendy carried the new pinkette to Lucy, Natsu stayed where he was, staring happily at his child, as Lucy first held her, first spoke to her, welcoming her to the world, the demon king felt his chest fill with a fierce pride, one that he had never felt before. As she handed the baby to her father, he felt tears threaten to show themselves, but he held them in until the new family had a moment of privacy, once that happened, he allowed them to flow freely down his face, feeling no shame.

Lucy smiled her husband, as he looked from his daughter, to her, and back again, after a moment he leaned in, pressing his forehead to her's gently, as he held their new girl between them, their Nashi, for they had already decided her name just weeks before.

"Thank you Lucy," the fire dragon slayer began, "thank you for everything that you have given me, your love, your heart, and now a family. How can I ever give you as much?"

Lucy smiled, and gently pulled him in for a kiss, after they broke apart, she spoke.

"You already have. You gave _me your_ love, _your_ heart, and now, _we_ have a beautiful baby girl. Everything that I gave you, you have also given me."

Their moment of privacy ended when Wendy came into the room to give Nashi a proper checkup, as Natsu gave the blunette his daughter, he saw Lucy heave a massive yawn, the sight of which caused him to chuckle.

"Go to sleep Luce, you deserve it. Also this kid has my hair, if she has my energy…"

"May the gods have mercy on our souls." Lucy interrupted while shuddering.

Natsu just laughed and said, "I'm a demon, I'm not too optimistic when it comes the gods' mercy."

Lucy glared at him as she fell asleep, "Why did you have to ruin my hopes like that?" she was asleep almost before she finished.

Natsu chuckled again and walked over to his sleeping mate, he kissed her on the forehead gently, whispering his love, then walked over to the horrid 'cushioned' thing that the hospital tried to pass off as a chair. Sitting down in the disguised torture device, that was only slightly better than the floor, he sighed and yawned at the same time, a feat which impressed him, as the stress and excitement of the day caught up with him and he realized that he needed a nap as well. He slowly nodded off while images of his Lucy holding Nashi played in his mind.

He smiled in his sleep a little more than usual that day.

That had been a month ago.

Today Natsu stood at the edge of Magnolia, the original Nine Gates in front of him, further out of the city, the Fairy-Tail members, including Happy who had opted to stay with Carla, behind him, his wife beside him, holding Nashi. Today was the day that they were leaving.

The demon king turned back to the fairies, the individual goodbyes had already been said, this was just the final send-off. Not that that information helped this hurt any less, in fact it was quite the opposite, because there wasn't any good reason that he could give to stall anymore.

The eight years that he remembered spending in Fairy-Tail were the best of his life, and that's saying something when you're 400 years old, and now he was leaving, not forever, but for awhile. He looked at his family, there had been some opposition to taking Nashi with them at first, but all argument were deemed invalid when Mard Geer, upon first seeing her, fell to the ground in a bowing position, all of the demon gates following his example, even Jackal, albeit grudgingly. All of the demons of Zeref proclaimed that she was their princess, and would be treated accordingly. They had followed through on that promise, over the past month they had taken almost better care of her than her parents, meaning that Natsu and Lucy would never have a short supply of babysitters.

As the fire dragon slayer looked at Lucy, he saw that she appeared to be in the same boat as him, he immediately dropped that thought as he suddenly felt a little queasy.

He sighed, knowing that he was going to have to take the lead on this one. He waved to the Fairy-Tail guild one last time, took his wife's free hand, and started to leave the town behind them, he had hidden the Tartaros fortress somewhere using his "Gate of Hell", deciding that they would all walk from place to place as he tried to teach the Nine something new about life. Two of those new things were humility, and servanthood, Natsu had them learning these virtues by carrying all of the luggage for the trip.

As he walked, he removed his tail from it's hiding place, wrapped it around Lucy's waist, the place he thought it belonged, and took Nashi into his arms, once this was accomplished he thrust his free hand into the air in the Fairy-Tail gesture, Lucy following his example.

He didn't need to look back to know that all of Fairy-Tail was doing the same.

 **I'M DONE! FINALLY!**

 **Again, really, really,** _ **really**_ **sorry that it took so long.**

 **I was stuck on that Jackal rebellion scene for like, a week, and to be honest, I'm still not entirely pleased with it. I still think it's necessary to show that Jackal's not happy with the situation at all, but I can't think of a better way to do it.**

 **Anyway, thank you all for your favorites, follows, and reviews! It means a lot to me that you liked this story that much. I know that I loved it, and had fun writing it.**

 **I can't thank you all enough for your support.**

 **I don't intend for this to be my last story, in fact I'm already have another few ideas in my head, but I don't know when I'll have enough to post again, so those of you who are following me as an author, don't hold your breath.**

 **Thank you all again.**

 **Baadaye- Duma**


End file.
